


Bound for Past the Grave

by temporalDecay



Series: a distrait life of mistakes [11]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-09 05:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1970724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Aradia Megido sets it all in motion and sits back to watch it burn.</p><p>Or, the conclusion of Eridan's character arc and the beginning of the End.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. wallow in the world as it spins, round and round

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be a one-shot. Then I realized no one wants to read a 60K one-shot, and I retooled it into a multi-chaptered fic. 
> 
> The ending of _A Distrait Life of Mistakes_ , hopefully suitable for the build up we've had until now.
> 
> Trust me, it's not as bad as it might seem.

  


* * *

  


_wallow in the world as it spins, round and round_

  


* * *

  


In the beginning, there were Gods. 

Now the complicated thing was that they were not born Gods, coming into existence knowing themselves all powerful and almighty. These were self-made Gods. Gods who had fought and lost and conquered and compromised and _survived_. There were Rightful Gods, who followed the rules set in the very foundation of reality, fostering new universes and keeping reality spreading and recycling, preserving the balance unspoken by those rules. But there were Other Gods. Warped Gods. Gods who were meant to reach their Godhood not by the rules but by the loopholes in the rules. Who sacrificed just as much, but were not Rightful and Chosen, and instead told casualty and causality to go fuck themselves on a stick. The Warped Gods sat in the space between universes, on the fringe of reality, where rules were mere suggestions no one bothered to follow. Where they could shepherd the Rightful Gods and their creations according to their own designs. 

In the beginning, there were Gods, Righteous and Other, who existed in balance and kept themselves constrained to the set of rules that had existed even before themselves. And in the end, there were also Gods, who saw and raged and _acted_. 

In the cracks of the void, two ancient, ageless monstrosities observed a primordial frog struggle to sustain itself in its pond. It was a sick, wounded creature, misshapen from the start, and left unattended by the designs of a monster who refused the Rightful rules and the Warped rules and desired above all to destroy everything. A tainted branch, so corrupted it refused to wither away like it was supposed to. They had stood in place for eons that felt like seconds – or the other way around, it was hard to tell, out there, where Time and Space were laughably malleable and just as insignificant as anything else – watching the frog get sicker and sicker as time went on, polluted in its core by an unspeakable taint. 

"It won’t work," said the old _thing_ that the old man had become, absently rubbing the stone between his fingers. “Not if you entrust this to _trolls_.” 

It was a rough stone, unpolished. But it glinted beneath its dull surface with the power of something monstrous and untamable that knew itself owner of its own power. It had gone through many hands, weaving a web of coincidences that carried enough momentum to overturn Fate. The old man, who had, once upon a time, in a different universe and under a different name, been a troll, thought he knew best than all how fickle and worthless his old kin were. He had the scars to prove it, when he remembered enough of himself to show them. But he was not a troll anymore, and he was not a Warped God quite yet, and so like the creature in the stone, he was suspended between two realities, holding onto the possibilities, rather than realizing them. 

" _We_ made trolls,” the creature within the stone crooned, light purring against the confines of her being, “in our image and our glory. We made them petty and broken and determined. It will work, because it is not Gods who will make it so.” 

It was a monster and a savior and a victim and above all, an Heir. The most important Heir that ever was, because she was the heart of everything, the possibility that refused to follow the script. 

"Fuck Gods," the old man laughed, eyes narrowed as he watched the frog writhe, blue lightning cackling as in a different pocket of reality, its heart was shot clean through. "Gods are bound by the rules just as everyone else." 

"Yes," the Heir agreed, and for the sake of being who she was, lashed against the walls of her cage, feeling them creak and contort, threatening to shatter the stone. She laughed when the old man clenched his fist, mending the cracks before they formed, a hint of his true nature peeking behind the edges of his being. "But that is the thing about rules," she went on, letting go of the pressure and pretending the small struggle hadn’t happened at all. She would be free, eventually. They would all be free. But only when the time was right. "They _bend_.” 

"So bend them to help _them_ ,” the old man snarled, letting his power and his nature bear down on her further, almost chastising. He looked at the children made Gods, scurrying about in the bubbles set up by his kin. Would be kin. He wasn’t gone entirely yet. It wasn’t time. “Help them stop that deranged brat for good.” 

"I don’t care about _him_ ,” the Heir hissed, gathering herself into a tiny point of angry light, deep in the heart of the stone. “I don’t care about his silly war. I won my game. I want my prize. He can have everything else.” 

"He’s not going to stop," the old man said, tired because this was an argument he knew would never end differently, but he couldn’t help but try anyway. It was in his very nature to argue for the sake of arguing, because it was the right thing to do. He’d lost so much for the sake of the right thing, that it felt almost blasphemous to stop now. "Not unless someone stops him." 

" _They_ can stop him, then!" The Heir snapped, petulant. "Or they can die and cease to be. I don’t care, they’re not mine.” 

"They were made from yours," the old man pointed out, arching an eyebrow at nothingness, amused despite himself by the Heir’s tantrum. "By yours." 

"They were made by a _corruption_ of my own,” the Heir snarled and flared up again, testing the boundaries of the cage again. “They are not mine. I don’t care if they win or not, I will reclaim my own.” And then, more quietly, “I will love my own in my own way.” 

"It will not work," the old man muttered, peering at the dying frog and then stepping back, just enough the frog was young and new again, tainted and doomed but not yet visibly so. "But I suppose this is better than not trying at all." 

"It will work," the Heir laughed, gathering herself for her great task, "you need only hope it so.” 

The old man was quiet after that, because he didn’t have an argument for that. Not against her. He stepped back again and let her reach out and tear a hole in the frog, pushing against the limitations imposed on her to reach out and scoop a single, dying girl from the depths of a universe lost somewhere within the frog. He had not agreed to play his part, exactly, but he knew better, by now, that his agreement or his disdain meant exactly the same thing, in the face of the machinations of the world. 

“Damara of the Meg’do clan,” he said, watching the girl hover between Life and Death, chained down by predestination in echoes that made him remember his own universe and his own journey. He smiled at her, more shadow and madness than a troll, shielding her from the few grains of truth that could collapse the whole thing into itself. “I would offer you a deal, child, if you’d rather not die.” 

She spat at him, and he smiled some more, because he remembered her – not _her_ , but the _other_ like her, the one chained down to serve without a choice, the one stuck in the world of ruin and misery that oozed rot to the entire frog from the deepest corners of its being – and the Heir laughed and laughed, because of course she’d be a child of Time, of course this would hinge on one of _them_. And the beauty of it, the true momentous power that would overturn the tide in the end was that, precisely. That they had to build on choice, that they had to trust fickle, broken trolls to stand on their own and make the right call when the time came. 

“What kind of deal?” She asked, after a moment, not quite cowering as the shadows of his would-be-self stretched and distorted and called out to the rest of the Circle. 

“A simple enough task,” the old man went on, voice and face and façade Dark, for the sake of making sure she served the right masters in the end, “my kin would have you bring their traitor to their justice.” 

Thus, at the beginning but also half a step before the end, the Old Man and the Heir stood impassive as the Handmaid bowed her head to masters she was never meant to serve, given powers she was never meant to wield, and sent on a mission she was never meant to complete. But they were Gods, Warped and Rightful, bound by the rules of the game, but not blind to their consequences. Not above rewriting them to suit their tastes. 

They stood there, knowing above all that once set in motion, they could do nothing more than watch and Hope for it to go down the way they had intended. 

  


* * *

  


For millennia, the Handmaid hovered above trollkind, herding events and destiny towards its ultimate Fate. Each and every child, offered the choice of death or destiny, took up the garb of office and set up to chip away at their titanic task. They gathered the signs of corruption, the bits and pieces that did not belong, and took them to the green moon, the core of everything that was wrong and cancerous in the world. This world, they knew, was not meant to be defiled like it had been, tampered with by forces outside the powers of its rightful owners. And it was their duty, to gather them all. Every speck had to be reclaimed, history itself rearranged around the changes, slowly and secretly, so their prey would remain unaware. They commanded power similar to hers, but it was not their nature to be what they’d become, and so one by one they withered and sought out replacements before they burned out, passing on the torch. They were insignificant, against the scope of what they had to fight, but that was in itself their power. The anonymity and invisibility that allowed them to continue, undisturbed, across the ocean of time. 

But the time of reckoning was upon them, and they knew they all had one last errand to run before the end. 

Horuss Zahhak knew death was coming for him. It was a quiet, solemn whisper in the back of his mind as he forced himself to seat up against the soft, plush cushions his current companion insisted he should have. He never really developed a taste for the nicer things in life, and considering what his life had been like, one couldn’t exactly blame him. Aradia brought him tea with that fluttering smile of hers that sank like hooks into his soul every time he saw it. She was still small and young and unbearably kind, and he found comfort in the notion that he’d be long gone before her smile washed away like all the others. 

And still, the idea of death weighted on him, if only because he did not want her to be there to see him go. 

“It won’t be long now,” he rasped, slowly shifting his tired, weakened limbs until he could take the tea from her hands. “Whether you stay or you leave, the results will be the same.” He took a sip of the strange brew Barani had stocked up for him, a strangely tangy taste he was sure was not produced by anything found in Alternia. Such were the powers of the Handmaid, such was her reach. He’d made peace with that a long time ago. He’d made peace with everything, by now. Even himself. “So you don’t have to endure it, for my sake.” 

“It’s pretty presumptuous of you,” Aradia replied, with a soft giggle, as she sat on the edge of the rest slab and folded her hands on her lap, “to assume I endure your company.” She arched an eyebrow at him, eyes dancing with kind mischief. “I reckon none of us ever endured you, Horuss, as it were. We’re all rather fond of you.” 

“All the more reason to spare you the grim spectacle,” he retorted, too sharply, too rough, and he regretted his tone as soon as it left his tongue, but Aradia went on smiling, unruffled. They all did that, which was what he loved and hated the most about them all. They all took him as he was, all the bent, misshapen corners of his being, where his own misguided grandeur had caved in as it was exposed for the empty worthlessness it really was. But they never judged him; they never condemned him, neither his cruelty nor his pettiness nor his rudeness. They took it all in, as it was, and went on without ever asking for any of it to change. They asked nothing of him, and gave everything in return, and deep down he knew he didn’t deserve it. “I’ve done more than enough to deserve my fate.” 

Aradia smiled and delivered the blow without skipping a beat. 

“Many would say Kurloz Makara did far worse than you did, and even he wasn’t left to die alone.” 

Horuss waited for the rage to come, for the memories of that night to rise to the surface of his mind, but they didn’t. For centuries, the scent of the battlefield strewn with corpses and the feeling of bone and cartilage snapping between his fingers haunted him on command. That hollow, echoing laughter sealed his fate just as much as the soft weeping of a girl whose heart he broke without even knowing he’d come to regret it. But now his matesprit’s last moments refused to echo in his skull and he was too tired to even feel resentful about it. 

“No one deserves to die alone,” Aradia went on, standing up and politely looking away from his face, which he imagined must be covered by an utmost uncouth expression. “Death itself isn’t a great horror when you get down to it, but that doesn’t mean you have to meet it on your own.” 

“Surely,” he retorted, slowly, “you must have more important things to do, than to watch an old man die.” 

“There’s nothing—“ 

“He ain’t gonna stop arguing, you know,” a new voice said, with a hint of smug affection that made Horuss tense because he remembered that voice, but hadn’t heard it in what felt like millennia now. Damara of the Meg’do clan stepped out of the shadows, infernal pipe hanging off her lips and wands carelessly gripped by one hand. “Too bloody stubborn to know any better,” she added, giving Aradia an almost conspiratorial side-look, and then turned to gift Horuss the very first smile he ever saw on that harsh face. “But I suppose that’s why we like him.” 

“The kindness helps,” said another shadow, twisting into another Handmaid, as Shrati Megido straightened her dress a bit. 

“So does the loyalty,” Dumuzi Megido added after a moment, coming to sit on the other side of Horuss’ rest slab. “Admirable as always.” 

“And who could ignore the honesty?” Said Hammal Megido, with her enigmatic smile as she held her hands on her lap. 

“Your wit has always been so charming, too,” Barani Megido proposed after she emerged from the writhing shadows in a corner, “so good to tell stories!” 

“I always liked the food,” Fryxus Megido offered plaintively, with that same honest simplicity that made Horuss ache whenever she came back heartbroken from a mission. 

“Your patience was a blessing,” Helles Megido said with a loving smile, reaching out to hold one of Horuss’ bony hands in her owns, “to help us learn all that we never knew we needed to know.” 

“We are here to say goodbye,” Aswini Megido concluded sweetly, over the murmur of more and more eerily similar voices, as dozens upon dozens of girls crawled from the cracks in reality and professed their love and admiration for the troll that sat in stunned silence, withstanding the onslaught of gentle words. “Because no one deserves to go alone into the dark, and you above all should know that what awaits you is not torment, if you know how to grasp it. If you realize you’ve paid your dues and pain and suffering have no hold over you anymore.” 

“We’re here to say goodbye,” Aradia Megido said, with that charm that was uniquely hers and made Horuss hate the world that would allow such a child to become a monster, and yet felt guilt for thinking of her as such. “Because no one deserves to die alone. Rest in peace, Horuss Zahhak, the Darkleer, the Handmaid will watch over your sleep.” 

Horuss Zahhak knew death was coming for him, and it found him crying quietly against his folded arms, surrounded by love and devotion that no other troll ever knew on their deathbed. It was quiet and painless and soft, like a brush of a feather. Dozens of lips smiled knowingly, dozens of eyes softened with kindness so rarely allowed to them. 

And when it was over, they took him to the heart of the brightest star they knew and felt it made it brighter afterwards. 

Then the Conclave of Handmaids, with all their earthly duties completed and all their personal affairs in order, traveled as one to the Site of the Great Undoing. It was Time for the Last Stand. All of them arrived together, ready to decide the fate of the universe and its place in the Veil beyond all rationality. For eons they had fought and killed and cried and schemed and prepared, until all the pieces were set in place and the curtain rose. For eons, they worked tirelessly to set the stage for the beginning of the end, hoping against all hope for a different outcome than what causality demanded. Now it was time, and with a shared laugh that stretched across generations, they readied themselves to fight Destiny itself. 

All but the youngest, the one who still remained unbroken by their duty and their fate; Aradia Megido watched her predecessors go and knew she couldn’t join them yet. They had prepared everything, carefully staging history to suit their needs, but there was still need for someone to give it the last push and send it all crashing down. 

And who else could do so, than the one they all knew would be the last? 

  


* * *

  


In a tiny grey planet orbited by two mismatched moons, there existed a city lost at the bottom of the deepest ocean. It was built eons ago, by an Empire no one remembered the name of, in the honor of nonexistent gods. In their arrogance, the trolls who designed its marble halls and sinuous paths awoke the slumbering monster that had slept quietly in the depths, from the beginning of time. An interloper from another world, betrayer of her kin and corrupter of reality, the creature in the depths sang in her sleep a song that kept the Rightful Gods away from the cradle of their world. But when she woke, she screeched madness into the water and in her fury, stole the sparkling city beneath the waves, with its tall temples and its luxurious palaces. It sank into depths that defied logic and reason and the basic laws of the universe, deep into the core of the monster, who played with the spires and the towers and rearranged it every now and then, just for the sake of watching it change. 

But the monster grew bored of the city and its empty streets, and remembering the echoes of a song sung by herself in a different world altogether, reached out to the surface again, searching for a child to walk the streets and bring laughter to the city once more. 

This was not her world, she knew, this reality was meant to be unspoiled and untouched, but she did not care, because she was here and she was free from the scrutiny of masters who only cared to see her die. So the monster reached out, humming a promise of power and might to her first child, and then the next, and the next. She let them go, but stole from them, just like it had stolen the city and this world, a ghost of themselves, a part of their souls that would forever keep the city changing and shifting. 

The monster’s name was Gl'bgolyb, once the most honored emissary of the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors, but no more. Defying fate, defying her destiny of death and destruction, she burrowed deep into the ocean, determined to live on, just this once. Her latest child had left, like the one before her, leaving servants to feed her while she watched her city and her ghosts shift and waver between the layers of reality. 

But she didn’t mind, because she could hear it already, the whispers from the brooding caverns, the promise of a new child to raise and tend to and play with. A child to learn everything she had to offer, who would fight and kill or be killed, and nevertheless join the host of shades in the city of the damned. 

The traitor in the deeps did not smile, because she was not a lesser, mortal thing, to feel joy, but as she prepared herself for her journey to the shore, she felt what a less corrupted creature might have termed delight at the new opportunities opening up before her. 

  


* * *

  


The Empress sat in her personal chambers, alone. She brushed her hair, more to give her hands something to do, than any real concern about her appearance, and studied the reflection in the mirror. She had known, of course, that this day would come. She had known she would have to make a choice, eventually, and live with herself because of it. An Heiress had been hatched. A child of Imperial blood, with the same powers and possibilities as her own, had succeeded in her trials. And now she sat alone, at the shore, calling out for a lusus to come find her. But there were no other lusus for one like her, other than the Empress’ own. There were no creatures in Alternia with blood as pure and everlasting as their own, except for the Singer of the Depths. 

And the Empress knew what it meant, the shift in her lusus’ song inside her head. She knew she would go find that child, answer her call. She would be given a name and taken to the cradle of the world, the city in the depths, to grow up among ghosts and memories. The Empress knew that child would learn the same lessons she had, because it was ordained by their lusus, that only one could survive. It was the price they paid, so that all of trollkind might live on, their existence bought with the rarest blood spilled out ceremoniously whenever an Heiress lived long enough. She had done it herself, to secure her throne, and so had her predecessors. All of them had to grab the crown with bloodstained hands, murder fresh in their minds, or die trying. It was how it had always been. 

And yet the Empress, who was kind and loving and sometimes even naïve, wished it would not be so. She had power over armies that could decimate the galaxy if she ordered it; she had endless subjects who looked up at her, if not with love at least with respect and loyalty. And she had taken all her power and dedicated her life to tear the Empire apart and rebuilding it from the ground up. The Empire she wanted to rule was not the one under her command, not yet, but she believed she could make it so, if only she had more time. 

But she didn’t have any more time, not with an Heiress waiting on the shore, crying out for her lusus to come. 

Because the girl would grow up and find her, eventually, and her lusus would demand payment for the muted existence she lived in the depths, and the Empress would have to kill a child that wasn’t ready. A child that would never be ready, because the Empress had changed the rules and the laws and now the world that would welcome this new Heiress was not the same callous, broken one that had seen the Empress rise. The Heiress would grow up weak and coddled, and find death waiting for her in the Empress’ own culling fork. Or she would kill the Empress, and her ideal Empire might never come into being, her projects and her hopes would die with her, and the Empire would never be her own, but her successor’s, just like her Empire was not her predecessor’s. 

Any other night, the Empress would have taken the news with sad aplomb, but that night she woke with the echoes of a nightmare in her mind. A prophet and a promise that made her skin crawl, as she tried to make sense of images that even then were already fading from her memory. She wanted to call it all a coincidence, to shove it away from her mind, but she had learned, through centuries of loving the Handmaid, that timing so perfect was a thing to consider and ponder and tread lightly about. 

The Empress put the brush down and reached to pull the heavy tiara off her head, and stared at her reflection as just a troll. Feferi Peixes stared back, unsure and worried and conflicted, but still herself. She knew, in that moment, that after she killed the Heiress – and she would, because the wellbeing of the Empire as she envisioned it depended on changes and reforms that still needed time to take root, and she couldn’t afford to die and leave it to chance and the whims of another to see it through – it would only be Condesce staring at her in the mirror from then on. 

Once the Heiress molted into adulthood, she and the ruling Empress had to fight to the death for the crown. That was the law, set in the song that echoed from the depths, and to refuse it meant extinction for every other troll in the galaxy. It was the way things were meant to go, her only options were to murder and survive, or to die and be forgotten. She’d faced this choice before, from the other side, and her will to survive and make things better was the only reason she’d come through to be who she was now. But it occurred to her, that things weren’t really different at all, if more than a thousand sweeps later, someone else was about to have that same choice thrust upon them. 

“There has to be another way,” she said, quietly, narrowing her eyes at her reflection. 

Because she was an expert on finding another way to solve her problems, even when everyone said there wasn’t one. Because she refused to believe this would be any different. 

“There’s _always_ another way,” Aradia said, her voice reaching Feferi before her body finished materializing on the edge of the dresser. She smiled at her moirail, head tilted sideways, even as her frame was licked by the darkness creeping out from the void. “It’s just a matter if you have what it takes to accept it.” 

Feferi had long stopped being surprised by her moirail’s timely appearances, or her habit to drag shapeless, horrifying things along with her, wherever she went. Aradia was the Handmaid, and while Feferi wasn’t entirely sure all that entitled, she understood enough to close her eyes and put her trust on her. No matter what Aradia said or did or implied, Feferi had to believe she was doing it for the greater good. For the long run. It was how she’d survived this long, and she had yet to be steered wrong. 

“I had a dream,” Feferi said, biting the inside of her lip and smiling weakly. “About a prophet and the end of the world.” 

“Harlow was nice,” Aradia replied, swinging her feet a little as she turned her eyes to the ceiling. “You’d have liked him, if you’d met him. More so than his descendant, I’m sure.” She grinned, shaking her head and making her hair rustle as she did. Feferi thought she could see stars trapped inside the dark curls. “You don’t need me to figure out what you need to do, you need me to remind you that it’s possible.” 

“I don’t—“ 

But Aradia smiled, and Feferi’s words died in her throat, because it was the same smile that she wore whenever she nudged her along the path of sacrifices for the greater good. Feferi braced herself. 

“You’ve thought about it,” she said, red eyes bright and almost eerie, “even before this. Because you know, at the core, something has to give. Something has to _change_. But you’re not strong enough to do it, and you don’t know anyone strong enough to help you. Not even me.” Feferi felt her face grow pale as her hands clutched her tiara in a white-knuckled grip. “But you do know someone who’d _obey_ you, if you ordered him to.” 

Feferi laughed, short, sharp and nervous, like she always did when she was overwhelmed and refusing to admit it out of sheer stubbornness. She pushed herself up from her seat and started pacing the length of the block, tiara still clutched between her hands. She had thought about it, of course. She was sure all the girls who ever stood in her place thought about it, when the Song was more draining than comforting, and the reality of their personal brand of slavery really started to sink in. But it was unthinkable to actually try and go through with it. That’s why no one had ever done it before. That’s why no one had truly changed anything before. Because her lusus was the linchpin of the Empire, everything that kept it static and horrifying in its tendency for violence and destruction, but what could they possibly do against her? She held trollkind as a whole hostage with her voice, and her powers over reality put her outside the scope of everyone and everything. 

It was outrageous and ridiculous, and she was sure every other Empress had entertained the thought at least once in their long lives, when the yoke of pacifying the monster in exchange for the billions of lives under their care became too heavy to bear. 

But now there was Aradia, smiling that dark smile of hers, eyes bright and expression kind, bringing those haunting thoughts to the forefront, forcing Feferi to look at them closely and reconsider. And making her remember a promise she had accepted and never really wanted. 

“I don’t think he actually meant what he said,” Feferi said, trying to smile and failing miserably. “I think he just wanted to be poignant and make sure I’d never try to order him around.” 

“You don’t know that,” Aradia shrugged. “You will be aided, every step of the way, but only if you ask. Don’t be afraid.” 

Feferi allowed herself enough weakness to consider it for a moment, before reality and the consequences of such thing dawned on her and nearly threw her off her feet. 

“He’ll die,” Feferi whispered, horrified by the implications behind Aradia’s words and further filled with disgust at her own willingness to consider such a course of action. “There’s no way he’d survive, even if he wins.” 

Aradia jumped off her perch and walked over to where Feferi was trying hard to stay upright. She reached out to hold Feferi’s face in her hands, smiling gently, and pulled her down enough so she could kiss her forehead. 

“Silly girl,” she said, expression gentle and soft, “how many times must I explain, death is not something all trolls fear?” 

“I can’t,” Feferi said, sob caught in her throat. “I couldn’t possibly—“ 

“You don’t have to,” Aradia promised, gathering her up in her arms, “but you will have to live with the consequences if you don’t.” 

Feeling suddenly very young and very afraid, Feferi let go of the tiara and broke down crying as it clattered heavily on the floor. 

  


* * *

  


All things considered, Feferi thought, summoning Vriska was perhaps the least advisable course of action she could have taken. She knew it was a bad idea, when Sollux made it obvious Aradia had not allowed him to listen in to their conversation. She knew it was a bad idea when she typed out the message. And she was a hundred percent certain it was a terrible idea, when Vriska’s _Acheron_ announced its presence and began maneuvers to bridge over to the _Dream Chaser_. Still, she had done it and if she took it back, it would only end up with Vriska being unbearable for perigees and Sollux nagging until she gave in and told him the truth. 

And the undeniable fact was that Feferi could barely cope with the truth on her own, she saw no need to spread the misery around, unless she absolutely had to. 

So she waited in her quarters, fixing her clothes and tending to her hair, as if she were preparing to go to war, because she knew every detail counted, when it came to Vriska. She was mostly self-possessed and ready, when she felt the blunt psychic touch against her mind, just seconds before the door opened and Vriska strolled in like she owned the place. It didn’t matter that Feferi’s mind was essentially psionic proof, what with the constant whispers of her lusus echoing in the back of her skull. Vriska still did it because it was a petty, annoying way to announce herself. And because Feferi hated it when she did, since it gave her a headache after a while, and Feferi hating something was always reason enough for Vriska to go out of her way to do it. 

“So?” Vriska asked, coming to stop a few feet before Feferi, hands on her hips. “What did you fuck up this time?” 

Feferi spluttered a laugh, despite herself, because that was such a Vriska thing to say. And despite how frayed her nerves were, about the whole mess hanging over her head, she thought perhaps this wasn’t too terrible an idea, if it still managed to make her laugh. She scoffed and refused to stand, because she _was_ the Empress and Vriska was entirely too fond of trying to forget that little fact whenever she could. 

“Hello to you too,” Feferi said dryly, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes, “what’s that supposed to mean?” 

Vriska snorted and sauntered over to plant herself on Feferi’s vanity, shoving most of the things out of the way before she did, with little to no regard about them. Feferi was aware, on some level, that Vriska was doing it to taunt her, but it still annoyed her. 

“You never call me unless you want me to fix something for you,” Vriska replied, smile smug and odious in a way that Feferi found refreshingly distracting. “Usually something you fucked up in the first place.” She folded her arms over her chest, one eyebrow arched. “So fess up, what did you do?” 

“Would it really surprise you to learn I really just wanted to talk to you?” Feferi felt the corner of her mouth twitch in annoyance. “Is it so terrible for your kismesis to want a fucking conversation?” 

“ _Please_.” Vriska laughed, reaching out to hold Feferi’s chin and tilt her face up so she could feel the full brunt of her sneer. “Is that what you’re calling it now? _A conversation?_ More like shoving your bulge up my nook and pretending you don’t like it.” 

“I wanted to talk about your lusus,” Feferi said, refusing to raise to the bait, even though she felt a meanspirited thrill when Vriska’s expression fell and closed up. She pulled her hand away from Feferi’s chin, as if scalded, and pointedly looked away. Feferi pushed on, unrelenting. “About how it felt, when she died.” 

Vriska took one good look at her and deadpanned: “Go fuck yourself.” 

She turned to leave, too furious to bother with the usual posturing she always carried herself with. Feferi stood up and found herself giving two steps after her, before she got a hold of herself and instead stood up tall. 

“Vriska, please,” she said, trying to soften the blow. “I want—“ 

“I had my fucking lusus culled because I _had_ to, Your Imperial Highness,” Vriska snarled, facing the door and not turning back. “Because I was running out of people to murder to survive. How did it feel? None of your fucking business. Haven’t you heard? The New Empire doesn’t cater to highbloods—oh, my mistake, to _coolbloods_ —just because they ask for it. About time you learned that yourself.” 

Even now, after so many sweeps playing the game, Feferi felt a flash of guilt, a sense that she had overstepped her bounds, and had to forcefully step on the urge to apologize and take it all back. And then she remembered this was Vriska, and she had lost all rights to kindness and consideration many hundred torched bridges ago. 

“You didn’t have your lusus culled,” Feferi snapped sharply, gathering aplomb, “you threw a stupid tantrum and tried to feed Tavros to her.” She narrowed her eyes, feeling that psychic lash trying and failing to sink its hooks into her mind, out of sheer inertia, because Vriska absolutely hated it when people didn’t dance to her tune, in her terms. “Gamzee disagreed with that idea.” 

Which was a polite understatement, and all the more insulting for it. Vriska bristled. 

“Do you really think I was so stupid I didn’t know that was going to happen?” She snarled, finally turning to glare venomously at Feferi. “Do you really think I didn’t see that coming? That it wasn’t _exactly_ what I wanted?” 

“Yes,” Feferi replied, without skipping a beat. “ _I was there_ , remember? You were crying.” 

“ _In relief!_ ” Vriska insisted, hands fisted at her sides, powers lashing out and only remembering how futile it was to try against the Empress when her psyche bounced off the walls around Feferi’s mind. “I was free, Peixes. I didn’t owe jackshit to anyone anymore! After so many sweeps slaving away to keep my lusus fed, nothing could have made me happier than to see her go!” She scoffed loudly. “Only you’d be so stupid as to not realize it. Just because you’re in love with your cage doesn’t mean you’re not a slave, Peixes, so don’t project your dumb weakass feelings on me. I ain’t _no one_ ’s slave.” 

“And no one’s friend, right?” Feferi narrowed her eyes, “because friendship is slavery and god forbid you let someone see you for who you are.” 

“I have you, don’t I?” Vriska said, stomping back into the room to try and crowd the much taller woman with valiant attempts to not be as short as she was. “The righteous, gracious Empress, to point out all my faults and my mistakes. To never let go of _anything_.” 

“I am _not_ your friend,” Feferi snapped sharply, pulling back to stand at her full height, towering over Vriska with ease. 

“You’re the Empress, Peixes,” Vriska laughed, refusing to back down or feel cowered by their size difference, “you’re _no one’s_ friend.” 

Feferi conceded that past her was right and this was a terrible idea. It was always a terrible idea to go to Vriska for advice or perspective, but she kept falling into the same mistakes, over and over again, because part of her knew that was what kismesis were for. And she couldn’t help but trying, over and over again, to find that right balance with hers, to turn the bitterness and the hatred into something useful. Part of her was forever resentful, because Vriska always brought out the worst in her, but she couldn’t help but feel she should have done something with that, to make it better. That this wasn’t all it was meant to happen. 

But this was all she had, and she hated herself, for not being able to just call it quits and stop trying to make it into something else. 

“I need to stop trying to care about what you feel,” Feferi whispered, sneering out of sheer fortitude, “since you clearly don’t care about what I feel.” 

Vriska arched an eyebrow, smirking smugly. 

“Will you stop being a scared little girl and kiss me already?” 

Feferi kissed her, and hated herself for it. She hated herself for the bad habit to seek out guidance where there was none. She hated herself for finding comfort in the sneer pressed hard against her lips. She hated herself for relaxing, one muscle at the time, when Vriska – claws and fangs first – reached to the shoulders of her dress and tore it down and off dramatically, because everything Vriska did had to be dramatic and grandiose somehow. Feferi hated herself as she folded back, banging an elbow against the vanity in her hurry to take her own weight off her feet and the clothes off Vriska’s back, with Vriska ghosting her claws against her gills. But she hated Vriska even more, when she straddled her hips and laughed and licked and taunted, and in the end that was all it mattered. 

“I will laugh,” Feferi promised, hands holding tight onto Vriska’s hips, hoping to leave finger-shaped bruises in their wake, “when you die.” 

Vriska laughed, tossing her head back as she slid her hips against Feferi’s, nook dripping invitingly even when her voice shifted pitch as Feferi slammed up inside her almost out of spite. She laughed and leered, leaning in to kiss the Empress almost reverently. 

“Just for that,” she promised, “I’m going to outlive you.” But for a moment, while Feferi caught her breath and tried to articulate an appropriate response, Vriska looked almost sincere. “You’re the Empress, Peixes. You do what the fuck you want. Even this.” Feferi cried out as the muscles in Vriska’s belly twitched as she clenched down almost hard enough to hurt. “Why change that now?” 

Feferi was sorely tempted to shove Vriska off her lap and off her ship and possibly off her life. But she resisted, in the end, and instead leaned in to sink her teeth against the collar bone closest to her face. 

“Because I’m not you,” she hissed, claws digging in to raise welts that made Vriska giggle high in the back of her throat. 

“Of course you’re not,” Vriska reached out to rub her fingers along the gills on Feferi’s side and at the last moment focused her attention on her breasts instead. “You _care_.” 

Feferi cried out at the sharp pinch and snarled at the words, and in the end she gave in to trying to make Vriska match her own voice, instead of arguing with words. 

Vriska didn’t care about words, anyway. 

  


* * *

  


“Is it time already?” 

Gamzee, sprawled on his throne, the throne of his ancestors, smiled vaguely as darkness twisted and curled around the petite woman standing in the center of his most sacred hall. He was fond of asking the same question, every time he saw her, because she would smile in return and shake her head. And then he’d laugh and slouch away to his private quarters and play riddles with her over tea and cookies. Tea and motherfucking cookies! Him! It was hilarious and he loved it. 

But that day Aradia did not smile, not right away, and Gamzee felt something he cynically identified as disappointment when she bowed down to him instead. It was coming, he knew, the End. It was knocking on their motherfucking door and was little to nothing they could do about it. He welcomed the idea, in theory. He had built his kingdom on the promise of that End, lied and schemed and murdered for the sake of what was to come. And he wanted it all to end, this rotten world that was poisoned to the core, broken and unworthy. But at the same time, he would be sad to see it go, if only for those minute things he’d miss, once they were no more. Which meant it was for the best, that it was ending now, before he got it into his head to try and stop the inevitable. He would, no doubt about it, he was enough of a fickle bastard to change sides at the last moment, and fuck the consequences. 

“Aw fuck,” he drawled, pushing himself to sit almost properly on the throne, the same looming presence he used whenever he lead rites to gods of clay, fed with empty words. “’s gonna be motherfucking weird, is all. Ain’t what I up and crawled up the coon for today.” 

Aradia’s smile grew, a giggle echoing in the hall, light and airy and free, unlike the cacophonous laughter that Gamzee had grown so used to he couldn’t even hear anymore. If the faithful learned to laugh that way, he thought, it would all be very different in the end. But the whole point was that it wasn’t different, it was exactly as it should be. 

“I can stay with you, if you want,” Aradia offered, smile kind and eyes bright. 

“No,” Gamzee smirked, leaning his chin on a hand, whole body tilted to the left, “you can’t.” 

Because he didn’t remember her staying, he was sure. And, he supposed, he knew how this had to go, so it was all a matter of conjuring up the memories and following his own steps, deciphering his own words for what they were meant to mean instead of what he’d managed to grasp, instead. 

“True enough!” Aradia replied with a little quaint shrug, floating up the stairs with a devious smile hanging off her lips. “But there is a universe where I stay.” 

“Is there?” Gamzee asked, eyebrow arched and leer in place. “And what happens in that one?” 

“It goes down in flames,” she laughed, reaching up to press a soft, affectionate kiss to his cheek. “So do try not to fuck this up, alright?” 

Gamzee honked a thunderous cackle at that, and tried to swat her away with an arm, but he went through her, feeling his skin prickle as the darkness she vanished into licked his senses. He let his voice rise in a mirthful prayer, shaking until the old bones creaked beneath his weight, and set out to wait. He was still roaring with the pointlessness of it all, when he felt reality shudder and be torn once more, but by then he was ready to play his part. 

After all, he knew what needed to be said. 

  


* * *

  


Gamzee wondered when the trip would end. It had long on for a while now, longer than his usual tangents into sopor did. It felt differently, too; too sharp, too harsh, too real. He wondered if he’d burnt the pie before shoveling it in still piping hot, ignoring the burns on his fingers or his tongue. He didn’t even remember why he’d been so frantic to eat it in the first place—blue blood and blue guts and the chirring screech of the spider as it died, thick hide caving in under the weight of his fists while Tavros screamed in the background—the look of sheer horror on Tavros’ face, all twisted and wrong and aimed at him, instead of Vriska—Vriska who still hadn’t gotten what she deserved, whose face he was going to peel off her worthless skull, one layer at the time, until it was just bone and blood and he could ground it to dust under his heel, but not while Karkat was around to see—Karkat holding his face in his hand, voice a desperate purr that sank like knives into the thick fog of his anger, deeper even than the pool of adrenaline in his joints, stronger than the siren song of sopor waiting to make him forget— 

Aradia tightened her hold on his hand, smiling kindly, all soft and warm and welcoming, and he wanted to lean in against her and scrap everything that’d happened in the last two nights clear off his pan. But it was Aradia who said he couldn’t run away, who’d offered the choice. To learn the secrets and the myths and sharpen his claws to keep those dear to him safe. Or to sink back and watch them burn, one by one, _taken_ from him—the rage rustled inside his skull, muddling the insides of his pan with the memories he wanted to forget, because otherwise he’d have to deal with them— _forever_. 

Gamzee wasn’t smart. He’d never really cared to be all that sharp, because the sharpness cut deep and made those around him bleed out and die. He wasn’t smart at all, no, he thought, not like Karkat’s actual best friend, who made the miracles happen with pretty words randomly painted on a screen. But he’d never wanted to be. The smart noticed things, knew truths, faced solitude. Gamzee was okay with not being smart, with never noticing the way Tavros flinched, with never knowing what Karkat really meant, with turning his back on an empty shore and the lukewarm waves in it. 

But the rage demanded sharpness. The rage needed him to be smart, to be focused. And he had to reluctantly admit that he was the rage as much as it was him. 

And then the choice wasn’t really a choice at all, but a matter of hissing a threat and having Aradia laugh in his face. He’d taken her hand and felt the world itself spin off axis. He listened to her voice, strung along by the rhythm of the words falling one by one from her mouth, than the meanings he needed to hang from each of them. But then she giggled, and he noticed, for the first time, the dark curl beneath the sound, something almost meanspirited that made it hard to ignore the rage bubbling still in his gut. All around them there was a purring whisper, something Dark and Other that crawled deep into his skull, slithering through his ears, coiling deep in the holes he’d left in his own mind, but he was not scared. Not until she tightened her hold around his hand and hovered in place for long enough for him to see the ghosts of massive shapes in the blackness all around them. 

“I think you’re the best person to get through to you,” Aradia said, tugging him along through a gaping tear in the non-space they were crossing. 

Gamzee honked in surprise, trying to pull away from the light, suddenly startled and regretful, because he wanted to take it back, he wanted to go back to his hive and the empty shore that promised things and never delivered on them. He wanted Karkat sitting in his lap and papping his face. He wanted Tavros not fighting off a hug. 

He wanted— 

“It doesn’t matter what you want,” the troll sitting high atop the stairs drawled in a low voice, and Gamzee felt the hair in the back of his neck stand on end, one by one. “That’s just the holiest motherfucking truth.” 

  


* * *

  


Feferi stood there, even now wishing to turn away and run, and feeling the weight of responsibility pressing her on. This was a choice that would bring forth a reckoning, she knew. Her feet were standing on the edge of the precipice, and she didn’t know what was waiting for her on the other side, only that it’d be different. But different was necessary. Different was the only course of action left to her, she knew, because no matter how she looked at it, _something had to give_. 

The old troll watched her stand by the doorway and made no effort to reach out to her, but he didn’t reject her presence either. He was old and tired and by now inured to the stares he received, everywhere he went. He did, however, admit to himself that she was looking rather small and insignificant, all things considered. It was rare, to see an Empress caving inside out like that. But she was not the first Empress he saw fall, and he had no intention of asking if she didn’t tell him. It wasn’t his place. It wasn’t his problem. 

“May I have a word?” Her voice was soft and subdued, and he toyed with the idea of sending her away just on principle, just because he could. 

“If you must,” he replied, voice rough and callous, even as he shrugged. 

She studied him for a moment, taking in the endless lines of golden ink on his skin, the lattice of scars beneath them, the disdainful tilt of his sneer and the accusing weight of his eyes on her. She took it all in and felt the urge to turn around and run, but she mastered herself and the impulse and instead closed the door behind him. 

“A long time ago,” she began, and he was mildly amused by the way her voice cracked in the middle, “you told me you’d obey one order I gave you. Just one.” 

His amusement vanished at the words, expression growing distant. She was a child, still, and would always be, for someone like him, but it seemed she had finally embraced her place as the Empress after all. He knew she would, eventually, because the weight of the crown could be crushing, but the power was exhilarating. He felt almost disappointed in her, however, if only because he hadn’t truly wanted her to become the monster she really needed to be to wear that crown and not be sick. 

“You’ve figured out what you want, then,” he said, lips pursed into a thin line, “is that it?” 

Feferi smiled at him, in a way that highlighted how very young she really was, despite all the time she’d spent wearing that tiara. And yet after a moment, her expression hardened and she looked more and more like the Condesce Psii remembered. It made him sad, for reasons he refused to consider. She held herself together, trying to make herself believe the part she was forced to play, and he could tell, that there was still more charade than truth to what she was showing him, but he also knew that was purely the first step to becoming who she had so loudly tried to not be. 

“A new Heiress has been hatched,” she said, trying very hard to keep her voice as neutral as possible, “I don’t want to kill her.” 

Psii’s expression darkened by degrees, scowl settling on his features as he tried to understand the possible orders implied behind those words. He had given her a chance, and he would honor it, even now. Even if what she wanted was terrible. Perhaps even more so, if only to try and live on like a beacon for her guilt, as proof of her failure to be anything other than herself. 

“So you’d have me kill her for you?” He sneered, and for a moment he let her feel the depth of his power as a surge of indignation at the idea coursed through his mind. 

But even as she swayed, her expression changed into a tense smile and she refused to wilt before him. 

“If that’s how you want to do it,” she replied, licking her lips. She had practiced the words, revised the rationalization over and over again, until she felt she would be sick if she had to try and justify this abomination one more time. “I just want you to make sure I don’t have to kill that girl.” 

He was old. He was smart. He had the scars that proved both. He pushed himself off his chair and glowered at her, leaning on the cane more for show than anything else. 

“If you’re going to go around giving orders, girl,” he snarled a little, eyes narrowed dangerously, “you better be clear about what you want.” The pressure lessened almost abruptly, and she stumbled, even though she managed to keep herself standing upright. “This is your only chance after all; you don’t want to fuck it up.” 

Feferi swayed in place again, breathing slowly through her nose as she tried to keep herself composed. This wasn’t how she expected it to go, because she had absolutely no expectations about this in the first place. She had chosen the words she could offer without making herself sick, but she had no idea how he’d take them, what he’d do with the knowledge. But there she was, swaying and barely holding onto the urge to fall to her knees and cry. It was a terrible thing she was doing, and the alternative was even worse, somehow. All the alternatives were worse, that was what being an Empress was about, in the end. 

“I don’t _want_ to have to kill that girl,” she repeated, giving in and folding her arms defensively in front of her body, “I don’t want _anyone_ to kill that girl.” She licked her lips. “But my lusus will make us, in the end. Because she’ll sing the galaxy to death otherwise.” She looked at him in the eye, half pleading, half mad, “ _I don’t want to have to kill that girl_.” 

And then it clicked, in between one breath and the next, the full spectrum of implications and half-truths and everything she didn’t want to say. It clicked and his anger vanished into the ether, devoured by something shapeless and terrible some might call hope. 

“You want me to kill your lusus,” he said, with a strange, almost reverent sort of wonder in his voice. 

It was that, ironically, rather than his anger, that made her break. She fell to her knees, face buried into her hands as her spine bent under the weight of her responsibilities as Empress. He’d mocked her for this, before, for her kindness and her love and her willingness to care. He felt strangely hollowed out by the memory, ashamed of his own cruelty. 

“I don’t want anyone to die,” she said, without a ghost of an Empress in her voice, only a child that had tried to understand the world and been left reeling, instead. “I just—“ 

“I’ll do it,” Psii said, euphoria rushing through his veins and pulling his lips into a smile. He folded down into the floor with her, pulling her into his arms and making her gasp. And then, because he realized the enormity of what was being offered to him, much better than she understood what she was asking of him, he pressed his forehead to hers and whispered: “ _thank you_.” 

And Feferi Peixes cried, because she was, despite it all, a child of Life, and death would always be the great, terrifying unknown she fought the hardest to keep away from her and her loved ones. But she felt like she understood, just a little, what Aradia had tried to explain. 

  


* * *

  


twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling tokenAgnostic [TA]

TA: what the fuck wa2 that about  
TA: What was what about?  
TA: you know exactly what iim talkiing about  
TA: 2piit iit out  
TA: Even ♊f ♊ d♊d, wh♊ch ♊ m♊ght rem♊nd you ♊ do not, ♊ wouldn't feel very ♊ncl♊ned to answer to that tone.  
TA: fuck off  
TA: you want to be an antii2ociial fuck, be my gue2t  
TA: but not when youre me22iing wiith my mate2priit  
TA: Ah, yes.  
TA: That.  
TA: ye2, that  
TA: you made her cry, you criippled 2on of a biitch  
TA: what the fuck wa2 that about  
TA: ♊ bel♊eve the r♊ght term ♊s: none of your fuck♊ng bus♊ness.  
TA: you made iit my bu2iine22 when you iinvolved my mate2priit  
TA: D♊d ♊, really?  
TA: How rude of me.  
TA: But tell me, why do you need me to tell you, anyway?  
TA: Aren't you supposed to know everyth♊ng?  
TA: ju2t an2wer the fuckiing que2tiion  
TA: You really don't know, do you? ♊nterest♊ng.  
TA: lii2ten, you fuckiing ba2tard  
TA: iif you hurt ff  
TA: Do tell!  
TA: ♊n the hypotet♊cal s♊tuat♊on ♊ had actually hurt your matespr♊t ♊n any way, that ♊s.  
TA: What would you do? Throw a tantrum? Rattle me out to your mo♊ra♊l?  
TA: Threaten my mo♊ra♊l?  
TA: Honestly, ♊'d love to hear what you have to say.  
TA: fuck you  
TA: Yes, that's what ♊ thought.  
TA: Here's some adv♊ce, boy, for all you're go♊ng to ♊gnore ♊t.  
TA: Very few th♊ngs ♊n th♊s galaxy can happen w♊thout you know♊ng ♊t.  
TA: Fewer st♊ll, are those who can keep you away.  
TA: Ponder that, and maybe, just maybe, you m♊ght real♊ze that there are th♊ngs not even you are meant to know.

tokenAgnostic [TA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

  


* * *

  


Psii had found his way back to his shared quarters with his moirail, after his talk with the Empress, because he needed to tell someone about the sheer bizarre maelstrom of emotions boiling in his gut. But after the stilted, awkward conversation with his descendant, he no longer felt in a rush to talk with anyone, not even Eridan. So he sat back and stared at the ceiling, ignoring the flaming wreckage that his hustktop had been reduced to, and tried to make sense of the riot inside his head. 

It was no small thing, what the Empress wanted of him. …If she really wanted it, considering her reaction to his answer. He had a feeling she had asked fully expecting him to refuse, and he couldn’t exactly blame her for that. No one on their right mind, no one who really knew what the imperial lusus was, would want to try their luck against it. But he wasn’t anyone else. He was himself, despite himself, and the potentially horrific ramifications of that offer were anything but terrifying for him. 

He was old. He was tired. He lived on, out spite and inertia, aware that his time was long past and sometimes almost resigned to the fact he might never end. And now the Empress, in all her awkward glory, stumbled gracelessly before him, reluctantly offering him everything he wanted. It was all he ever wanted, for literal eons now. A way out that would not end with misery and death for anyone else. A chance to finally _stop_. An escape from an existence languishing under the weight of his own past. 

His quadrantmates wouldn’t let him, though. Eridan would cry and argue and throw a fit, because Eridan hated change and losing those he loved, few and far in between as they were. And Terezi would snarl and call him a coward, because she was vibrant and breathtaking and too proud to ever consider giving up. He felt like an absolute bastard, because for a moment he regretted loving them. If he’d never let them in, showed them all the scars and all they hid beneath them, he wouldn’t be sitting there, pondering how to ask them to let him die. He would just leave, and he knew no one would be able to stop him. They couldn’t really stop him, truth be told, if he didn’t want to let himself be stopped, but he had enough regrets as it was. He knew better than to burn the bridges before leaving. 

He was just so _tired_. 

He found himself wandering along the corridors of the _Leviathan_ , trying to find a way to soothe his inner turmoil and not being particularly successful. All around him, trolls went about with their lives, most of them fairly content with their lot. Despite it all, he could admit it was better than it had been before, that perhaps some of Peixes deranged ideas about change and progress weren’t complete idealistic bullshit. But trolls were trolls, in the end, and they served themselves above all. Psii wondered if he had enough troll left in him, to remain firm in his decision and be selfish enough to get what he wanted. He was jaded enough to know guilt would be part and parcel of it, but he wondered if he was inured enough to withstand it. 

He was so caught up in his thoughts, that he was almost surprised to run into Arthur in the maintenance corridors of the ship. 

"And what exactly are you doing?" Psii asked, arching both eyebrows as he watched the seadweller shift about, rummaging under the metal plating, tongue caught between his teeth. 

Arthur startled a bit, then grinned at him, stretching to fit his shoulder inside the opening, balancing most of his weight on his knees. He looked patently ridiculous and clearly up to no good, as usual. Psii allowed himself an indulgent smile as the boy - he wasn’t really a boy anymore, but he also never seemed to grow into anything other than a boy - reached whatever he was looking for. A soft click was heard, and then he pulled himself up, rolling his shoulder. 

"Shh, Eri’s doing an inspection today," he whispered, nodding over to the side, where the large metal pipe turned sharply downwards some twenty feet, where another catwalk crossed by the control panel. "He’s being a sourpuss again." 

"Mmhmm," Psii hummed, "and you’re such a good friend you’re going to cheer him up, then." 

He felt a pang of something hollow in his chest, watching the way Arthur’s expression lit up with glee. He yearned for that, the ease to feel whatever he wanted, the freedom to be just himself. He often thought he was too old to be truly happy, despite what his quadrantmates had to say about it. It made him feel reckless and ungrateful, in the face of their content. 

"Cheering up, pissing him off enough he snaps out of his funk," Arthur said, shrugging and raising his hands, palm side up, "semantics, right?" His left fin twitched, and his expression shifted into anticipation. "Here we go…" 

Down below, Psii saw Eridan and his entourage of admin runts walking down the catwalk, busy talking about this or that detail that was no doubt insignificant in the grand scale of things but still made Eridan fret and fuss like the world was ending. He watched impassively as his moirail stepped up to the control panel, scrutinizing the settings and poking about it as one of his admins stuttered about an explanation. He looked decidedly sour, all things considered, which Psii was reluctant to admit meant maybe there was something to Arthur’s cajoling. 

And then Eridan turned a valve, to test the readings, and the machine went haywire, flashing and beeping before the valve burst and unceremoniously spat oil all over Eridan’s face. 

There was a moment of silence, the sort of deep, terrified kind that followed lesser prey realizing an apex predator was in their midst, before it was broken by Arthur collapsing into a cackling heap at Psii’s side. 

“ _Imoogi_ ,” Eridan snarled, half words, half subsonic screech, as his admins, well versed in the consequences of standing in his way when he sounded like that, dropped pretenses and threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their arms. 

Arthur, mischief complete, scrambled off, running along the catwalk up to where it ended and then jumped off the railing, violet light softening the fall as he reached another catwalk to run on. Eridan, dripping oil and looking murderous, roared in outrage and took after him, seeming to swell in size with anger. Psii watched them go, running and jumping off the bowels of the ship, waiting for the precise moment when Arthur’s laughter would pierce Eridan’s rage and cause them to shift from chase to race. 

He smiled to himself, and turned in the opposite direction. He should have enough time to reach their respiteblock and prepare to share the news, by the time Eridan came back, exhausted and clear-eyed. It would be a very short good mood, he knew, and he felt a pang of guilt over it, but he doubted hiding things from his moirail would make it any better, in the long run. 

“We should talk.” 

Psii stopped abruptly at the sound of that voice, feeling unease trying to remember the road down his spine. He turned around and found the Handmaid floating midair, eyes mischievous despite the promise of something Dark curling along the edge of her smile. 

“We should talk,” Aradia repeated, offering him a hand and studiously ignoring the scowl on his face. 

Psii wondered what would happen if he gathered all his power to him and threw it at her. He knew who she was, what she did. Trolls regarded her as an old superstition these days, but he’d grown up hearing stories about the Handmaid of Death, the Usher of Doom. Misery and despair followed, wherever she went, he knew, and he also knew better than to dismiss the strange dread sitting on his gut. 

“Should we?” He asked in turn, realizing that all he would cause, if he fought her, would be the destruction of the ship and the death of innocents who had no stake in their battle. 

“We should,” Aradia said, smile widening, “about choices and consequences.” 

He snarled a smile back, and resisted the urge to scream when he grabbed her hand and darkness swallowed them both. 

  


* * *

  


Psii felt a pang of sadness strong enough that nearly made his knees buckle under him, when he regained his bearings and realized exactly where they were. He wrenched his hand out of her grip and felt his power awaken under his skin, as he snarled viciously at her. 

“How dare you?” He said, voice breaking with sheer outrage. “How fucking _dare_ you bring me _here?_ ” 

But Aradia merely shrugged, smile unruffled, and turned her eyes to the walls of the ancient hall, studying the faded paintings on them. They were brighter than he remembered, less worn by time and abandonment, and through the fog of rage, he wondered _when_ they were, not just where. Time and Space, he knew, were but playthings for her; nothing more than tools she used to shape history and the destiny of trolls to suit her own designs. 

“You always felt safest here, didn’t you?” She said, looking at him over the corner of her eye. “Felt you could think more clearly here than anywhere else, right? I figured you could use that now.” 

“Is that what this is about?” He demanded with a sneer. “Some attempt to bully me into doing what you want?” 

He felt light gathering around him, lightning crackling around in red and blue, and took a moment to swallow the air that suddenly seemed so scarce around him, lest he lost control. 

“Of course not,” Aradia laughed, shaking her head. “I want you to understand the implications and consequences of your choice.” Her eyes softened. “I want to give you a chance to back down, if you really don’t want to do it.” 

“If you think just because you serve that thing, I’m—“ 

“I don’t, actually.” Aradia turned her back on him, looking up at the pictures of gods left behind by trolls long gone. “I want you to do this, Mituna.” He tensed up horribly at the sound of his own name, but found he couldn’t quite put together the words to tell her to shut the fuck up and leave him be. “We all do. We have worked tirelessly for this for far longer than you can imagine, preparing everything for you. The Handmaid has worked to guide your life to this moment since the very beginning, of Time and the World, because the Handmaid exists solely to see the False Singer die and you are the first troll in the history of Alternia to come close to having a chance to do it.” She sighed. “But even though the Handmaid has conspired so that you could find yourself here, now, that’s not enough.” For a moment her smile faltered. For a moment, Psii caught a glimpse of the girl behind the wands and the smiles. “It has to be a choice.” 

“I’ve made my choice,” he snapped on reflex, scowling. “And what does it matter, anyway? You know damn well what I’ll choose.” He sneered again, fingers spasming around his cane. “It’s all about predestination, when it comes to you, isn’t it?” 

"Predestination _is_ about choice,” Aradia shrugged, then floated back, sitting on thin air. “You can set up the cards and ready the stage, and people can still choose not to go along with it, in the end." 

"So what happens if I choose not to?" Psii gave in on the urge and found his corner of the ruins, the place where he slept and ate and listened to Kankri drone on about things that were too amazing to believe but he needed more than air. He slid against the cold wall and fought off a shudder of sheer nostalgia and the sob that trailed after it. “If I already said I’d do what you want me to do, why give me the chance to change my mind? What if I decide to tell you to fuck off?” 

“Because you deserve better.” Psii was taken aback by the sharpness of Aradia’s voice. “Because we _all_ deserve better. We all deserve a chance to change our minds and walk away. Because it’s not a choice if no one tells you there _is_ one.” She looked down at her hands and the wands loosely held in them. “So if you decide not to? I’ll be bummed because I wanted to be done with this, we all did, but in the end I’ll just start from scratch and get there eventually.” She licked her lips, and then giggled slightly off-key. “The pattern will repeat itself, over and over again, until someone makes the choice to end it." 

Psii looked at her hands and her face, trying to see the signs of exhaustion hinted at in her voice. He wondered how long she had been doing this. He sat there in silence, mulling over words and rumors and stories and his own desires. It was no small thing, what the Empress had offered him. It was no small thing, what the Handmaid hinted at. He sat back and forced himself to look past his own desperate selfishness, to the consequences of his actions beyond those few souls he still gave a damn about personally. It wouldn’t matter to him, once he was gone, but it would be his doing, in a way. 

"And that choice is mine?" He asked after a while, fingering the ridges along his cane, over and over again. 

"Not _just_ yours, at least,” Aradia mused, patient. It was that, that really got to Psii. The patient kindness and the unruffled smiles; he wanted to see a monster but the more he looked, the more he realized that all that stood before him was a frighteningly kindred soul. “See, that’s the beauty of predestination, it has failsafes. That’s how patterns work. Someone’s choice invokes someone else’s, and they spread out like the links in a chain, swaying reality this or that way. No matter what you choose, it’ll affect someone else. So really,” Aradia pulled the fruit out of nowhere, smiling teasingly as she bit on it, “it’s all about whether you have what it takes to step up and do it, or if we should wait another eternity and a half and see what happens." 

Psii found himself scoffing when she threw another one at him, catching the fruit with his powers before lowering it to his hands. He scoffed again, because otherwise he might sob at the strange weight that settled in his gut as he fingered the fruit like it held his very soul. He was almost surprised when the chuckle bounced against the back of his teeth. 

"Have you ever been told that you’re obnoxious?" 

Aradia winked and took another bite. 

"Often enough!" 

"Yes,” Psii nodded to himself, “I imagine so." 

The silence stretched, but it was not hostile. It couldn’t be, not when Psii was unable to find that spark of scorn he’d hold onto just a few minutes ago. 

“To tell you the truth,” she added, after a moment, carefully not looking at him, “I know you’re not going to change your mind about this. But I still wanted to talk to you.” 

He gave in and bit into the fruit, and it was as sweet and juicy as he remembered it. For a moment, he was young again; terrified of what he’d done and so desperately hopeful that he’d made the right choice. For a moment, he could close his eyes and remember Kankri holding his wrists, promising to fix it all as he tried to erase the shackle scars. He could see Porrim in his mind, smiling indulgently, always a warm hand on his shoulder and almost smell the scent of Meulin’s ink drying on coarse paper as she taught him how to turn sounds into script to ensure it’d last. He swallowed the mouthful and refused, yet again, to let the tears come. 

“Why?” He asked, voice a hoarse whisper. 

“Because you don’t need your death to mean something, to face it with aplomb, but I still think you _should_ know about it.” Aradia inclined her head, respectfully. “We owe you that much.” 

Psii hummed in the back of his throat, and listened to her tell the story of the End of it all. 

  


* * *

  


tokenAgnostic [TA] began trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

TA: Hey.  
TA: Rez♊?  
TA: Do you have a moment?  
GC: MURR  
GC: YOU KNOW 1 LOV3 YOU  
GC: YOU KNOW WHY  
GC: B3C4US3 1 CR4WL OUT OF TH3 COON H4LF 4SL33P  
GC: JUST FOR YOU  
GC: DO YOU UND3RST4ND, M1TUN4?  
GC: 1 LOV3 YOU MOR3 TH4N 1 LOV3 SL33P  
GC: 1T'S 4M4Z1NG  
TA: Oh fuck. Fuck, sorry.  
TA: ♊ forgot.  
TA: You just sw♊tched sh♊fts, d♊dn't you?  
TA: Fuck, never m♊nd.  
GC: 1TS OK4Y, YOUR3 MOR3 1NT3R3ST1NG TH4N D4YT3RRORS 4NYW4Y  
GC: WH4TS UP?  
TA: Go back to sleep, ♊'m be♊ng stup♊d, sorry.  
GC: 1 H4V3 NOT 3V3N ONC3 DOUBT3D TH3 F4CT YOU'R3 4 MORON  
GC: 1'M 3V3N WORS3, S1NC3 1 F1ND 1T CUT3  
GC: NOW SP1T 1T OUT, WH4TS WRONG  
TA: ♊t's noth♊ng.  
GC: NOTH1NG DO3SNT M4K3 YOU TROLL M3 W1THOUT 4NGST1NG 4BOUT 1T FOR H4LF 4N HOUR  
GC: 1M ONTO YOU NOW  
GC: YOUR3 JUST GONN4 H4V3 TO T3LL M3  
TA: Can't we just say ♊ suddenly m♊ssed you?  
GC: W3 COULD  
GC: BUT SOLLUX 1S DO1NG TH4T OBNOX1OUS TH1NG OF H1S  
GC: WH3R3 H3S P1SS3D 4T YOU  
GC: 4ND H3 COM3S WH1N1NG 4BOUT 1T 4T M3  
GC: 4ND 4DM1TT3DLY TH4TS 4LL W3LL 4ND GOOD  
GC: TH4TS WH4T MO1R41LS 4R3 FOR  
GC: BUT TH3R3S TH3 B1T WH3R3 H3S S4Y1NG YOU M4D3 F3F3R1 CRY 4ND H3S OUT FOR BLOOD  
GC: D1D YOU?  
TA: Depends ent♊rely on your def♊n♊tn♊on of mak♊ng cry.  
TA: She d♊d all the cry♊ng on her own, well after ♊ left.  
GC: M1TUN4  
TA: ♊t's actually funny, really, ♊n a subjugglator k♊nd of way.  
GC: >:?  
TA: Adm♊ttedly  
TA: ♊ m♊ght or m♊ght not be drunk off my ass r♊ght now  
GC: DO 1 N33D TO K1DN4P YOU 4G41N  
GC: B3C4US3 1 WOULD B3 V3RY GL4D TO K1DN4P YOU 4G41N  
GC: 1 H4V3NT G1V3N 3R1D4N 4 R34SON TO Y3LL H1MS3LF HO4RS3 4T M3 1N D3C4D3S NOW  
TA: ♊'d apprec♊ate ♊t ♊f you d♊dn't  
GC: WHY NOT?  
GC: 1TS H1L4R1OUS  
TA: That's not really the po♊nt, ♊ st♊ll need to talk about th♊s w♊th h♊m.  
TA: Should probably talk w♊th h♊m before talk♊ng w♊th you, all th♊ngs cons♊dered, but then, drunk.  
TA: ♊t's my story and ♊'m st♊ck♊ng to ♊t.  
GC: R1GHT  
GC: BUT YOU DO 4DM1T 1T 1S H1L4R1OUS WH3N YOUR MO1R41L LOS3S H1S SH1T 4T M3  
TA: ...What's the number of that art♊cle that lets me weasel out of th♊s conversat♊on w♊thout say♊ng anyth♊ng?  
GC: TH3 N1NTH  
TA: Yes, thank you.  
TA: Ahem, ♊ plead the n♊nth.  
GC: OH W41T NO  
GC: TH3 N1NTH 1S TH3 ON3 TH4T M34NS YOU 4DM1T YOUR 4W3SOM3 M4T3SPR1T 1S 4LW4YS R1GHT  
GC: FOR NOW UNT1L FOR3V3R  
TA: ...brat.  
GC: K1DD1NG 4S1D3, WH4TS WRONG?  
GC: 1M 4LMOST CONC3RN3D H3R3  
GC: 1TS 4WKW4RD 4ND F33LS FUNNY, PL34S3 M4K3 1T STOP  
TA: ♊'m sorry. ♊t's compl♊cated.  
GC: R1GG1NG 4 TR41L 1S COMPL1C4T3D. R31NT3RPR3T1NG OLD L4WS TO SU1T TH3 N3W POL1C13S OF TH3 3MP1R3 1S COMPL1C4T3D.  
GC: TH1S?  
GC: WH4T3V3R TH1S 1S?  
GC: 1 PROM1S3 YOU, 1T'S NOT COMPL1C4T3D.  
TA: Perhaps not. ♊t's actually fa♊rly stra♊ghtforward.  
GC: S33?  
TA: St♊ll can't tell you outr♊ght though.  
GC: WHY TH3 H3LL NOT?  
GC: >:[  
TA: Because your mo♊ra♊l ♊s l♊sten♊ng ♊n and he's not supposed to know.  
GC: S4YS WHO?  
TA: People who know better than he does.  
GC: P3OPL3 YOU TRUST?  
TA: ...yes. ♊ guess ♊ do.  
GC: GOOD 3NOUGH FOR M3, 1 GU3SS.  
TA: Really?  
GC: 1 R3S3RV3 TH3 R1GHT TO R3VOK3 TH4T ST4T3M3NT, BUT YOUR3 R4R3LY WRONG, WH3N 1T COM3S TO PUTT1NG YOUR TRUST ON OTH3RS  
GC: 4S MUCH 4S 1T P41NS M3 TO 4DM1T 1T  
GC: PL34S3 DONT T3LL 3R1D4N 1 S41D TH4T  
TA: Why not? Maybe you two can f♊nally stop c♊rcl♊ng each other l♊ke sharks. ♊t's gett♊ng a l♊ttle old, by now.  
GC: M3 4ND 3R1D4N, M1TUN4, 4S FR13NDS  
GC: TH3 WORLD M1GHT 3ND  
TA: ♊ suppose you're r♊ght  
GC: 1M ST1LL 1TCHY 4ND WORRY1NG, THOUGH.  
TA: ♊'m sorry.  
TA: But... Just because ♊ can't tell you here doesn't mean ♊ don't want to tell you.  
GC: SO?  
TA: Would ♊t be too much to ask you to come see me?  
GC: 1 DONT KNOW, 1S 1T TOO MUCH TO 4SK W4T3R TO B3 W3T?  
TA: Brat!  
GC: 1T SHOULDNT T4K3 TO LONG. K4RK4T'S H34D1NG TO M3SL1 YUK3N N3XT 1SNT H3?  
TA: No. There's been a change of plans.  
TA: The Lev♊athan and the Morr♊gan are escolt♊ng the Dream Chaser back to Altern♊a.  
GC: >:?  
TA: ♊'ll tell you when you get here.  
TA: ♊'ll be wa♊t♊ng  
GC: W3LL TH4TS NOT OM1NOUS OR 4NYTH1NG  
TA: ♊ love you  
GC: MUCH TO MY CH4GR1N, D3SP1T3 KNOW1NG B3TT3R, SO DO 1  
GC: PL34S3 DONT DO 4NYTH1NG STUP1D UNL3SS 1M TH3R3 TO Y3LL 4T YOU FOR 1T  
TA: ♊ can try  
GC: 1 JUST W4NT YOU TO KNOW TH4T 1F TH1S 1S 4N 3L4BOR4T3 PR4NK TO BOOTYC4LL M3, 1M GO1NG TO B3 UPS3T  
TA: No, ♊t's not.  
TA: And you won't.  
GC: NO 1 WONT, 1TD B3 B3TT3R TH4N WH4T3V3RS CR4WL3D UP YOUR SKULL TH1S T1M3  
TA: ♊t could always be though.  
TA: You know ♊ love bootycalls.  
GC: M1TUN4  
TA: A cosm♊c bootycall, ♊ could l♊ght up the way all the way from here.  
TA: Follow the blue-red road for awesome sex, unhot trolls need not apply.  
GC: 1M GO1NG B4CK TO SL33P NOW  
GC: OBNOX1OUS B4ST4RD  
TA: ...please be safe, Rez♊.  
GC: <3  
TA: <3

tokenAgnostic [TA] ceased trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]

  


* * *

  


Psii fiddled with the pendant, claws scratching the surface of the gem. Aradia said so long as he wore it, it would prevent Sollux from recording or listening in on what he said. The irony of keeping his descendant in the dark about their situation was not lost on him, considering he knew now what was coming. But Sollux would live on and learn, and in time maybe he would understand why things had to be this way. He would get in the way, if he knew what he was planning to do, and Psii felt an irrational pang of disgruntled fondness for the boy. They were kin, in the end, bound by genetics and fate to be nothing more and nothing less than themselves. 

He wondered, for a moment, if the time would come for Sollux to be offered this same choice, what he’d do. But he also knew that it didn’t matter, not in the long run. 

He waited for Eridan to return to their shared block, but when he did, Psii found he couldn’t bring himself to blurt out his ominous truth just then. Eridan was tired and worn, and instead Psii nudged him into the ablution trap and then into the recuperacoon, refusing to listen to his excuses. What did it matter if he waited a few hours? _He’d made his choice_. Everything else was laughably irrelevant to him. The next shift, Eridan stirred as the sirens howled, snuggling up against Psii’s side in a way that made Psii feel those tears gathering up against his throat once more. 

“Stay,” he said, holding onto Eridan’s wrist and refusing to let him out of the recuperacoon. “Just today,” he added, trying to smile and not quite managing a grimace instead. “Please.” 

“But—“ 

“I need you to stay,” Psii insisted, watching Eridan’s uncertainty waver on his face. “Please.” 

And his silly, silly child of a moirail, who was by no means a child anymore, nodded slowly and crawled back into the slime with him. He’d never missed a single shift in his life before, Psii knew, it was one of those ridiculously meaningless things that Eridan held onto and bragged about like war stories. And Psii need only to ask for him to throw it away without any real fight. He’d always known it, too, that he’d do it, but it sent a pulse of warmth into him, to have actual proof of it. 

They spent hours there, just cuddling sleepily in lukewarm sopor, and Eridan said nothing, even as Psii trailed the curve of his horns with his claws. Psii wondered if he thought he was having one of those bad nights, where sensory input threatened to fry his pan. He hadn’t had those in a long time, now, but Eridan never forgot those. Eridan didn’t understand what went through Psii’s head half the time, but he still tried. He adapted. Psii clutched at him, his dumb, dumb seadweller brat of a moirail, who needed coffee like most trolls needed air and who bitched about everything and everyone about the smallest thing. He felt that sense of bitterness again, because he’d never asked for this. And he felt he didn’t deserve it, because he so keenly didn’t want to ruin it and knew he would have to anyway. 

“I’m going to kill myself,” Psii whispered, hours later, when he’d managed to bury the sob so far down his chest it didn’t resurface at the sound of his own voice. 

“What?” Eridan asked, tensing all over, and oh, Psii wished he could take it back. 

He sat up instead, clutching the pendant and trying to school his features into a peaceful smile. 

“I’m going to kill myself,” he repeated, slow and methodical, and felt a pang of regret as Eridan pushed away, pressing his back against the wall of the recuperacoon. “The Empress has given me leave to try and kill her lusus. I’m going to die trying.” 

He saw the emotions flicker behind Eridan’s eyes as his fins fluttered at each side of his face: surprise and confusion and anger, all of them blending until he hissed like a dangerous thing, seeming to swell in place. 

“No,” he snarled, eyes just the barest hint tinted red, “I don’t care if she’s the Empress, she doesn’t _own_ you, she can’t just order you to—“ 

“She didn’t,” he said, even though it was technically a lie. It had been forever since he last lied to his moirail. But he was tense and unstable and he’d latched onto that for the sake of not facing the truth. “I want this.” 

“No, you don’t,” Eridan spat, then stormed out of the recuperacoon, dripping sopor everywhere. “You just _think_ you do. I don’t know what the fuck she told you, but it’s not—“ 

“Eridan,” Psii snapped, leaning against the edge of the recuperacoon, voice sharp to force him to look at him. His smile waned when he did, “I _want_ to do this.” 

“ _No, you fucking don’t_.” He raised his voice considerably, fins flaring threateningly. “What the actual fuck, Mituna? You’re happy! _Happy people do not want to kill themselves_.” 

“I do,” he made his way out of the slime, to try and shoosh him, but he hissed loudly and stepped back when he tried to touch him. “It’s not—“ 

“You were happy yesterday,” Eridan snarled, seemingly just a moment short of stomping his foot in frustration. “And the day before! Or was that a lie? Me and Pyrope? What the fuck are we, then, if we’re not making you happy?” 

Psii swallowed hard and let his arms fall listlessly at his sides. 

“You and Rezi make me very happy, Eridan,” he took a deep breath. “But I’m old. _I’m very fucking old_. I shouldn’t have even been alive to meet you. But I did, and you made me ridiculously fucking happy.” 

“Just not happy enough you wouldn’t decide to up and try kill yourself,” Eridan snapped back, eyes decidedly red with a mixture of hurt and betrayal that hurt Psii to his very soul. 

“I want to do this,” Psii whispered, fragile like a house of cards and feeling like his foundations were being torn off one by one. Then, he swallowed it down and tilted his chin back, setting his jaw as if to go to war. “I _am_ going to do this,” he added, pushing every scrap of self-confidence he had behind his voice. “I would much rather do it with your support than without it, but I’m still going to do it even if you don’t want me to.” And before he could stop himself, he felt the petulance overcome him, because he added, rather snidely: “I’m not your fucking kept pet, Ampora, it’s my life and I’ll do with it whatever I want.” 

He wished to take the words back, when he realized Eridan’s expression had closed up entirely. 

“Go fuck yourself, Captor,” was all he said, voice deadpan, before he stormed out of the block without looking back. 

  


* * *

  


“You know, I will never stop being surprised just how stupid you can be.” 

Eridan shot the source of the voice without even looking, on reflex. He paled when he realized it was Aradia sitting high on a pipe, smiling in amusement. The bullets sat, frozen in place, inches from her face. Fear and rage waged inside him, paralyzing him on the spot. Because he sure had just shot the Empress’ moirail in the face. The fact she had not died was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. 

“I suppose the more things change the more they stay the same,” Aradia said, giggling before she jumped off her perch, landing just a foot away from where Eridan stood. “But here, have some free advice, for all you’re terrible at taking it.” She floated up, just enough so she could press her lips to Eridan’s cheek. “Not everything revolves around you and what you want, Eridan.” She arched an eyebrow, already melting away into nothingness. “I thought you’d learned that the hard way already?” 

Deep in the bowels of his ship, so deep no one came here unless he ordered it, Eridan fell to his knees and felt a wail of anger and despair tear itself free from his throat. 


	2. staggers on wobbling roads void of any coin

  


* * *

  


_staggers on wobbling roads void of any coin_

  


* * *

  


twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling volatileVindication [VV]

TA: you  
VV: ...er.  
VV: Hi.  
TA: make your damn ass useful and go talk to the chancellor  
VV: Right.  
TA: now, imoogi  
TA: i dont have all fucking night  
VV: ...  
VV: That's it?  
TA: cant even do that?  
VV: אo!  
VV: I meaא, yeah.  
VV: Sure, I'll do it.  
VV: I meaא, I just kאow you doא't like me much aאd all.  
VV: Aאd that's totally cool, too, doא't get me wroאg.  
VV: I'm just woאderiאg.  
TA: what  
VV: ...what am I eveא supposed to tell Vaאtas?  
TA: tell him to go check on eridan  
VV: Did somethiאg happeא?  
TA: shut up and go  
VV: Right, right!  
VV: Goiאg!  
VV: Jeez, what crawled up your ass aאd died?

\-- volatileVindication's tablet has exploded --

  


* * *

  


Arthur Imoogi was not, despite all signs to the contrary, a fool. One did not spend centuries building up that impression on people, and somehow not dying as a result, by accident. He was a meticulous, selfish creature and he had no illusions otherwise. He liked his simple, uneventful life that mattered absolutely jackshit in the large scheme of things, because he knew for a fact the alternative was worse. But even if he relished in it and every drop of amusement he could extract from it, he was too smart to really buy his own lies. And as he found himself walking down the winding corridors of the secure wing of the _Leviathan_ , he put two and two together and winced hard enough it was a miracle it didn’t make a sound. 

Because if something had happened to Eridan, something bad enough that it made Sollux I-am-an-asshole-who-delights-in-the-misery-of-those-I-love Captor decide Vantas needed to be involved? It had to be truly spectacularly bad, for him to need an intermediary, lest it put their quadrant in danger. Arthur debated the possibility of going out to find Eridan himself. After all, he and Eridan were friends, nearly brothers for all intents and purposes. At this point, no one would be dumb enough to confuse his concern for actual quadrant feelings. But then he remembered he had to take Sollux I-am-so-smart-it-circles-back-into-being-absolutely-fucking-stupid Captor into consideration, and he revised that last statement. 

With a forlorn sigh about his lost tablet – it took literal decades to convince Eridan to requisition him one, dammit! – Arthur set out to find Vantas and try to was his hands clean of the whole thing. 

He and Eridan were friends, after all, once the dust settled, Eridan would spill the story and Arthur would be able to nod to himself and snark about Captor being dumb and overreacting like always. 

It’d be fine. 

It always was. 

  


* * *

  


“I just had the single most ridiculous conversation in the last few decades.” 

Karkat punctuated the statement by dropping onto the floor to sit next to Eridan. It had been a wondrously bizarre conversation, truthfully. Imoogi knew more than he let on – because _of course_ he did – but he kept tripping all over himself to imply it without outright saying anything, giving Karkat all those meaningful looks that made not a lick of sense. In the end, he’d thrown his hands in the air, told him Eridan was sulking somewhere in the depths of the waste disposal sector, and then written down directions when Karkat kept staring at him in bewilderment. To his credit, Karkat was willing to admit, said directions had been very helpful and he’d probably not be there, without them. 

He made a show of folding them up and sliding them into his sylladex, before resting his arms on his knees and staring at Eridan inquisitively. 

Eridan pretended Karkat wasn’t there for a grand total of six seconds, one snort and two sighs. Then he bumped his shoulder onto Karkat’s and offered a pathetic smile. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Karkat said, shrugging and not at all snuggling up to Eridan’s side. Because that’d be dumb. Of course. “Arthur said ~his sources~ said you were upset. I think Sollux set him up because he’s worried about you and he doesn’t want to quadrantsmear.” 

Eridan bit back a laugh, snarling at nothing in particular, and then draped an arm around Karkat, not quite giving into the urge to curl around him, but close enough. He wasn’t _upset_. He was angry. He was beyond angry. He was irrational and furious. He wanted to break things and burn the goddamn ship to the ground. He wanted to hurt everything and everyone, but mostly himself. And even so, despite his anger and his self-loathing, he couldn’t bring himself to break his moirail’s confidence. 

Because Mituna Captor was a writhing bag of festering, pus-leaking bulges, but he deserved _better_. 

He deserved the best and all he had was Eridan, who fucked up everything he touched and ruined everything just by existing. 

“What would you do,” Eridan asked, instead, tugging Karkat closer and giving up pretenses, “if I died?” 

Karkat went rigid. 

“What?” 

“I mean, if it wasn’t an accident?” Eridan shrugged awkwardly. “If I said I wanted to die, would you let me die? Would you stand there and let me do it? Would you _help?_ ” 

Karkat pulled away sharply, reaching with a hand to grab Eridan’s lapels in a fist. His eyes were wide and his mouth pulled into a snarl. 

“What the actual fuck are you talking about?” And his voice was sharp and Serious, like it was when he stood in front of a multitude and told them in small, easy words why they’d do exactly as he said. “Eridan?” 

“I’m not suicidal!” Eridan snapped, then pulled Karkat back into his arms, laughing because in his head a voice replied: _but maybe I should be_. “I got into a fight with Psii.” 

“And now you’re contemplating through yourself out an airlock?” Karkat asked, sounding unconvinced of Eridan’s sincerity. 

Eridan laughed hollowly, burying his face into Karkat’s hair. The impulse was there, he realized. And it scared him and frustrated him, because he knew better. Running away had never solved any of his problems, only made them worse. _But the impulse was there_. Except he had nowhere left to run, except out of an airlock. Would it really be that bad, he wondered. As far as he was aware, the only thing all his problems had in common was him, and removing it could only help solve them. A corner of his mind screeched in protest, but he was tired and angry and the closer they got to Alternia, the more frantic he became, needing to do something and unable to come up with anything useful. He refused to seek out Psii, because he had nothing to say to fix things. And he wanted to, to hug his moirail and stand by his side, but he had nothing to offer. He had nothing to give. 

Aradia had said so, nothing revolved around him, _he didn’t matter_. 

“I’m not _suicidal_ ,” Eridan repeated, stronger this time, forcing enough certainty into his words to make them convincing. 

_But maybe I should be._

It was always easier to lie once one knew it was lying in the first place, Eridan mused, reaching out to tilt Karkat’s face up so he could kiss his cheek. 

“Good,” Karkat began, nodding sharply and raising a hand to thumb Eridan’s lower lip, “because—“ 

“But just for future reference,” Eridan interrupted, arching an eyebrow and forcing a smirk against Karkat’s touch, “what _would_ you do if I killed myself?” 

“Murder you,” Karkat replied, eyes narrowed, and then smiled wryly when Eridan barked a laugh. He shook his head. “Come along, you pitiful wreck of a troll, have dinner with me.” 

Eridan blinked. 

“But it’s not—“ 

“I’m the fucking High Chancellor of Alternia and All Its Bloody Fleet,” Karkat said arrogantly, standing up and brushing invisible lint from his clothes. “I can have dinner any time I fucking want to. And right now I want to have dinner with my amazingly stupid matesprit, so he’ll stop being stupid and go patch things up with his astoundingly imbecile of a moirail.” 

“Hey!” Eridan protested, scrambling up and for a moment feeling something genuine cross along the fog of despair clouding his mind, beneath pretenses and lies. 

He nearly fell to his knees when Karkat turned to him with a sincere, loving smile, offering a hand. 

“It’ll be alright, Eridan,” he said, tightening his hold around Eridan’s hand when he gripped it, “it’ll be alright in the end.” 

More than anything in the world, Eridan wanted to believe him. And he knew he couldn’t, because Karkat didn’t know what he was talking about. But it wasn’t Eridan’s place to let him know. He had no place. 

But, he reasoned with a near manic clarity, that just meant he had to make a place for himself, somehow. 

It wouldn’t be the first time. 

  


* * *

  


Karkat stopped abruptly, sitting on Eridan’s thighs and studying his matesprit sprawled beneath him. Eridan never stopped being beautiful, in his eyes, when he yielded and submitted like this, all gills and muscles and scars and rings, and on his chest, right above his bloodpusher, the bright red tattoo that still made Karkat wibble when he saw it. Because it was certainty, it was a promise for the future. It was that elusive thing Eridan always seemed to be looking for, when he meandered around life like his feet were stuck on shifting sands. Karkat understood what the crisp, clear lines meant and why Eridan clutched at it over his clothes, every now and then, when he looked lost or tired or ready to collapse and was still too damn stubborn to give in. 

“Promise me you won’t do something stupid,” he said, pressing his hand on the tattoo, refusing to see it as a sign of ownership, despite what he might have teased about in the past. Eridan whimpered a little, blinking at him with tears in his eyes that had nothing to do with the way Karkat had been playing with the rings on his gills a few moments ago. “It’s not my place and I know it, and I trust you to fix things with your moirail the way you think it’s best, but promise me anyway.” 

Karkat wondered if he’d overstepped his bounds, when Eridan didn’t answer right away. But then he decided he preferred an answer this way, watching Eridan try and compose himself, realigning with the shift in the mood. Because he realized a well-thought answer beat one given out of obligation by a mile. And then he felt guilty, for trying to get Eridan to say something he might not mean, in the long run. He was about to take the question back, to apologize and try to salvage the situation, when Eridan sat up enough he could pull him into his arms. 

“I promise I won’t do anything you wouldn’t be proud of,” he said, clutching Karkat tightly. “I love you.” 

Karkat snorted, leaning in to kiss the edge of Eridan’s neck gills. 

“Stop trying to comfort _me_ ,” he snapped, fondly exasperated, “I’m the one who’s doing the comforting here. With a side order of ruined-by-feelings sex, because that’s how I fucking roll.” 

“What are you talking about?” Eridan giggled, rolling his hips so his bulge could reach Karkat’s and coil around it. It made Karkat choke on spit and a moan. “We’re the best at sex. It is us.” 

“Sex solves everything, huh?” Karkat reached a hand to flick his fingers along the base of Eridan’s left horn, just for the sake of startle him enough he could pull his bulge free. 

Eridan whined, doubly so when Karkat’s hand found his side and ever so gently tugged at the rings there. 

“Why don’t you shove your bulge up my nook and find out?” He gasped, feeling the heat rush back and almost swallow up the strained air between them. 

Karkat kissed him like the world was ending, and did precisely that. 

  


* * *

  


There were many, many things Eridan Ampora disliked doing. Balancing budgets. Performance reviews for his crew. Audits. But none filled him with nearly half as much dread as the prospect of talking with Aradia Megido. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Aradia. He certainly didn’t _dis_ like her. It was purely a matter of having a very well informed notion of what she was and who she served and what could possibly come out of it all, that made his skin crawl and his teeth worry his lower lip until he tasted blood. 

_Everyone_ liked her. 

Everyone who wasn’t dead, he supposed. Which was a statement in and of itself. She was just… this massive, terrifying figure looming in the horizon of his mind, always far away enough to be indistinct and not worth thorough examination, but present. And now he was forced to take a hike up the mountains of denial and _oh god no fucking way_ inside his pan, until he was up close and personal with the concept of Aradia Megido and all the possible ways she could fuck him over but chose not to. 

For a moment, he caught a glimpse of something, almost like perspective, and what it was like, for the rest of the galaxy, when they saw his moirail slouch about with his perpetually carefree and careless expression hanging from his ugly face. But then Eridan knew Psii. Eridan knew the ins and outs and turnabouts of Psii’s mind and understood, above all else, that Mituna Captor was not capable of hurting another troll unprovoked, and that provocation in itself would need to be far more destructive than whatever his retaliation could ever hope to achieve. 

But then the moment passed, as it almost always did, as far as Eridan was concerned, and Eridan harrumphed to himself that he knew Psii, but he most certainly did not know Aradia. The only people who knew Aradia, he supposed, were Feferi and Sollux, but given the circumstances, Eridan wasn’t yet desperate enough to go ask them for opinions. 

Not yet, but close enough. 

"You just have to ask, silly," Aradia said, materializing on his desk, legs folded at the knees so the slit of her dress spread up all the way to her thigh, pulling herself from the empty pockets in the space between molecules. It was surprisingly unimpressive, all things considered. Without great light flashes or dark whispers or anything that could be constituted as grand. 

Eridan still shrieked in the back of his throat, flailed and careened backwards until he tripped with his chair and landed in a heap of limbs on the floor with a rather painful sounding thud. 

Aradia giggled, folding her hands on her lap. 

"If you want to talk with me," she said, one eyebrow arched, lips pulled into a devious smile that reminded Eridan of terrible, monstrous things lurking in the corner of day terrors and the hearts of dying stars. "You just need to ask." 

Eridan stared up at her, the traces of something Dark still curled around the edges of her being, and swallowed hard before he snarled at her, gathering aplomb. He pulled himself back to his feet, straightening his spine and trying to cling onto his anger and his grief enough to loom, even though he knew it was pointless. 

“I don’t want to _talk_ with you,” he said, licking his lips and stubbornly trying to conquer his panic. He needed Psii, he knew. He needed his moirail desperately, but he still had no answers or options to offer, nothing to make his apologies worth it. So he swallowed hard and clenched his hands into fists at his sides, claws digging into the fleshy bit of his palms. “I want fucking answers.” 

He braced himself for death, because he knew what she was. He would need to be stupid, not to. He knew the history, the whispers, the rumors. All those mysterious things that had made him want to understand what the history _meant_. He knew, now, exactly what she was. Before that day, when she whispered advice he didn’t want to hear into his ear and vanished into nothing, he had been like the rest, unsuspecting of her true nature. But he couldn’t ignore it, now. He couldn’t stop himself from putting the pieces together and being horrified and awed at once. 

But Aradia didn’t lash out at him, didn’t blast him into nonexistence like he deserved. 

Aradia smiled, eyes bright and hopped off his desk to offer him a hand. 

“Shall we, then?” At his hesitation, her smile widened, and Eridan began to realize he was capable of far more fear than he’d ever thought before. “Go and find your answers?” 

He thought of Karkat. He thought of Psii. He thought of his audits. He thought of Equius. He thought of all the familiar faces and the tiny details that colored his life and gave it some semblance of meaning. 

He swallowed hard and grasped her hand, barely gasping with the Darkness swallowed him whole. 

  


* * *

  


“Oh,” Aradia said, stepping through the void, pulling Eridan along, as her feet touched the ground. “ _Oops_.” 

Eridan didn’t like the sound of that too much. He jerked his hand back, but found his back hitting a wall, their portal gone. In retrospect, that was a good thing, because he had glimpsed at the things living there and he had no desire to spend more time with them. Still, as he tried to gather his bearings, he realized they were standing in a relatively small block, stone walls decorated with paintings and thick fur rugs on the floors. There was a massive wooden desk pulled up against the tiny window on the left, and a tall, regal-looking troll standing by it. 

“Cronus?” The man asked, blinking in surprise and staring at Eridan long enough that he could piece the features back together. 

_Imoogi_ , he thought, but not any he knew. And that made the floor of his gastric sack pummel to his knees, coupled with the belated realization of who _Cronus_ was. 

“Forgot you’d be here!” Aradia said, not in the least bit apologetic, smiling as the other troll shook his head and seemed to realize Eridan was not who he thought it was. “Sorry, Mehtar.” 

“You’re not,” the Imoogi, Mehtar, said in a mock-stern voice, folding his arms over his chest, “and you did not.” He took one last curious look at Eridan, and then met Aradia’s eyes with a fond if put upon expression on his face. “But please, feel free to use my study to your leisure. I will make sure you go undisturbed.” 

Then he took one last look at Eridan, considering, and walked out of the block with little more than a whisper of cloth and the rustle of his hair. Eridan turned to Aradia, and found her already sitting on the desk, studying the plate of pastries in it, trying to decide which one she wanted. 

“Everyone has a safe place,” she began, picking something round and greenish that Eridan couldn’t recognize, before Eridan could gather enough wits to splutter all the questions clamoring inside his skull. “Somewhere they feel safe and protected. Somewhere they are not afraid and they can think clearly.” Aradia popped the morsel into her mouth without a care, leaning back so most of her weight rested on her left hand, and raised both eyebrows to give Eridan a curious look. “Except you.” 

“I don’t—“ 

“You want answers,” Aradia reminded him, smiling that eerie, unsettling smile of hers again and making Eridan hunch back on reflex. “I don’t give _answers_ , I offer choices.” Her expression sobered somewhat. “But choices without understanding aren’t really choices. So I take people to their safe places, to where they can think and weight their options and make a choice they will not regret.” Eridan swallowed hard, at the myriad of implications behind that. “But you don’t have one.” She sighed, swinging her feet and reaching for another pastry. She spoke and chew at once and Eridan was still too unnerved to complain about her lack of manners. “So I’m improvising a little, you’ll have to forgive me that.” 

“Where are we?” Eridan asked shakily, wondering if she was just going to take him out of the picture and abandon him here. “Wh—“ but he bit on the rest of the word because to finish that question was to give a measure of reality to the sheer incomprehensible concept. 

“When?” Aradia finished for him, chuckling when he flinched. “A very long time ago, for you. Long before the Summoner’s rebellion. This is your Ancestor’s estate,” Aradia grinned, “well, will be, one day, but not yet.” 

“Why?” Eridan asked, focusing on small, straightforward questions for the sake of not dissolving into a panicked mess. 

“Because you want _answers_ ,” Aradia said, giggling in delight at a joke Eridan couldn’t possibly understand, “but I only offer choices.” Her expression turned devious. “Like the one I offered your moirail.” Eridan jerked in place, bright red psionics holding him in place long enough for him to realize he’d tried to lunge at her, claws first. Aradia clicked her tongue in disapproval, and refused to let him go as she continued. “I didn’t tell him what to do, Eridan. He made his choice.” She arched an eyebrow at him, before reaching to pluck another pastry into his mouth. “I offered him a way out and he refused.” 

“You’re _lying_ ,” Eridan hissed, struggling against her powers almost on reflex, because he knew, rationally, that he didn’t stand a chance against her, but he was angry and anger cared jackfuck about what was rational. “ _You always lie_.” 

“The Handmaid doesn’t _lie_ ,” Aradia explained, somewhat miffed. “The world doesn’t have enough perspective to understand. There’s a difference.” 

“What do you _want_ from me?” Eridan snarled, feeling his eyes burn and knowing they were slowly filling up with red. “I can’t talk him out of it,” he snapped, feeling his airsacks burn, bitter, “I fucking tried.” 

Aradia flicked a hand and shoved Eridan into the wall, surprisingly gently, considering he knew firsthand what psionics could do. She released him, but he remained where he was, slumped in place, seething quietly. 

“I want you to stop sticking your nose on everyone else’s choices,” Aradia said, voice sharp with disapproval. “You have choices of your own to make, Eridan. That’s the thing, really! Everyone has choices of their own to make!” 

“Right,” he said, growling in the back of his throat, “and you happen to be there, to tell them what choice is best.” 

Aradia sighed. 

“That’s the biggest misconception about my job, you know?" Aradia smiled, tilting her head back to feel the breeze blowing softly from the window. "I don’t tell people _what_ to do. I tell them what the _consequences_ of their choices will be, so they can make an informed decision they wouldn’t have, without that knowledge." 

"So you make people realize they’re between a rock and a hard place," Eridan snorted, sneering. He was being aggressive and confrontational, and he knew it, but found he didn’t feel inclined to stop. "Oh yes, that’s very _different_ from telling people what to do, I’m sure." 

"A choice is a choice," Aradia replied, frowning. "No one wants to admit it, when the time comes, but just because you chose the less painful road doesn’t mean you _didn’t_ make a choice. You _always_ have a choice. You can choose to walk away. You can choose to do things that are counterproductive. You _have_ a choice, everyone does! That is the core of predestination. The one truth everyone always tries to forget. You make a choice, and the consequences cascade out of your control, but they still come from you. You can choose to create or to destroy, to protect or to kill. You make choices based on what you want and what you believe in, but even if you convince yourself you have no other choice, your justifications do not negate your ability to choose.” 

"So what if I choose what you don’t want me to?" Eridan said, letting her words sink in as he steadied himself and slowly rose to his feet again. 

"I want you to choose," she giggled, shaking her head. "I don’t care what you choose, because I’m not you, I won’t have to live with the consequences of it. I just want you to make the choice fully aware of what you’re choosing. There are conditions and consequences, depending on what you choose, but that’s my job, you see, making sure you don’t go in blindly. I want you to be able to look back and not wonder what-if. Just— _ah_.” 

The ground shook for a moment, and then loud screaming echoed from the window. Aradia giggled and scooted over, peering out to see the commotion down below. Eridan blinked as she beckoned him to her side, lips quirked into an expression of sheer mischievous amusement. 

“I can’t let you meet him,” Aradia said, somewhat wry, “but I figure you might want to see him, at least.” 

Eridan didn’t have to ask, not when he leaned out the window and found himself with a clear view of the docks down below and the two seadwellers loudly quarreling in it. Eridan drank in the sight of his ancestor and Garfit yelling obscenities at each other, dressed in plain grey while in the background a large ship burned. They looked so _young_. He realized with trepidation that he was much older than them, as he was, and the thought tripped inside his skull until he had to swallow back a hysterical laugh, watching his ancestor fling Garfit into the ocean with a shrill cry of frustration. 

“Your choices are your own,” Aradia said, unbearably kind, as she rested a hand on Eridan’s shoulder. “Even your choice to deny someone else’s theirs.” 

Eridan watched an old man walk down the pier, steps slow and confident, and saw his ancestor cower along with every other troll, as far as the eye could see. He felt a pulse of dread in his gut when the Lord – he knew it was a Lord, what else could possibly make another seadweller cower like that? – waved his hand and his ancestor’s face erupted in a shower of blood. And Eridan, who was terrible at politics and loved history and strategy and always dotted his i's with smilies, had another of those near mindless clarity moments that shook him to the core of his being and understood the threat behind what Aradia was showing him. 

He swallowed hard. 

“So tell me,” he said, turning to look at her with a mixture of fear and hate and the barest hint of understanding, “what are my options here?” 

Aradia smiled. 

It was not kind. 

  


* * *

  


twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling caligulasAquarium [CA]

TA: 2up  
CA: hey  
TA: you hate bull2hiit and 2o do ii  
TA: 2o let2 get riight two iit  
CA: wwhat the hell are you goin on about noww  
TA: no deraiiliing, eriidan  
TA: youre my friiend a22hole  
TA: dont do the confu2ed awkward iidiiot routiine ju2t tell me what the fuck ii2 goiing on  
CA: ...im sorry  
TA: what  
CA: im sorry!  
CA: id tell you if i could  
CA: but its not mine to share  
TA: what the actual fuck ii2 wrong wiith you  
CA: i just fuckin CANT okay  
CA: i made a goddamn deal  
TA: ERIDAN  


caligulasAquarium [CA] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

TA: oh my fucking god youre not 2tupiid enough two  
TA: ...of cour2e youre 2tupiid enough youre you  


  


* * *

  


Agness Syzygy was not, on the whole, having a good shift. She hadn’t had a good shift in a while, to be honest. Having the route changed abruptly meant the entire crew was scrambling about to get things done. Of course, the order came from the Empress herself, so there really wasn’t much she could do about it. Agness swore she liked the Empress, she really did, and then she pulled stunts like these and Agness found herself feeling a lot less patriotic all of a sudden. She grumbled to herself, taking her food tray and heading back to her usual spot in the hall. If she could say something nice about the _Morrigan_ crew – and some nights she swore she couldn’t – it was that at least they didn’t actively set out to give her ulcers. And they understood the little, tacit cues to leave their officials the hell alone. 

Well, most of them did, but Agness thought herself well-versed enough in seadweller psychology to understand Murray was a lost cause. And she was fine with that. Zahhak was great at keeping Murray far, far away from her when he got into one of his idiotic moods, so that was always a plus. 

She sat at her table with a sigh, and about two seconds later felt the damn sensation of a puddle of goo curling up around her ankles. No one really minded the damn thing anymore, least of them Agness herself, who had grown to see her pet as more of a companion than a duty. 

“Excuse me,” said a chirpy voice, and Agness found herself looking up from her lunch to find a thin, perky-looking girl holding a tray and smiling guilelessly at her. “May I?” 

Agness studied the massive, swirling horns above her head and the deep rust of her eyes and the anonymous grey of her uniform, blinking in surprise. She felt her monster bubble inquisitively and gave it a good kick to keep quiet. Then she realized what her armband said and found herself nodding, eyes narrowed dangerously. 

“Sure,” Agness said, watching the girl take her seat without a care. “Go right ahead. I didn’t know we had people from the _Leviathan_ aboard.” 

“It happens,” the girl said, smiling brightly and without missing a beat. “I admit it’s a bit convenient when your Head Admin is quadranted to the Captain of your matesprit’s ship.” 

“Yeah,” Agness snorted, “I’d imagine so. So! What can I do for you, then?” 

The girl blinked. 

“Pardon?” 

Agness arched an eyebrow. 

“What can I do for you?” She repeated, tilting her head to the side just a little. “What made you come over and sit here?” 

The girl giggled. A pleasant enough sound, Agness admitted, and watched her slowly unpack her lunch with a methodical leisure that struck her as odd, for no discernable reason she could readily explain. 

“Oh, no, I just thought you looked like someone who needed some company,” the girl said, smiling, then winked. “Also the sort that doesn’t mind having company when you need it.” 

Agness gave her a squinty look. 

“Really?” 

The girl shrugged and offered a hand. 

“It’s my thing,” she said, smile bright enough to border on disconcerting, “knowing things.” 

“Huh,” Agness found herself shaking that hand and feeling vaguely puzzled about it. “Got a name to go with all that knowing?” 

“Aradia Megido,” the girl said, shrugging. “Death squad, at your service.” 

“No offence, kid, but you look kind of puny for that squad,” Agness teased, still somewhat wary. The fact her pet was mostly bubbling contently was reassuring, though. The damn pile of slime was a better judge of character than most trolls Agness knew. 

And Agness admitted to herself that the smile was almost infectious. 

“I hit harder than I look,” Aradia said, winking again. “But I can leave you alone if you want. Like I said, you just seemed to need some company.” 

“You know,” Agness grinned, relaxing, “I kinda do.” 

It wasn’t until the beginning of the next shift that Agness noticed her tablet was missing. She found her in her respite block, and thought no more about it, despite the nagging whisper that she’d had it with her when she went out for lunch. She was in high spirits after her chat with the quirky rustblood, and all the messages she had pending came from a certain yellowblooded Lord with a tendency to try and order her around. 

She deleted them without reading them, figuring anything truly important, Zahhak would tell her directly, anyway. 

  


* * *

  


“I don’t want you to do this,” Eridan said, entering his respiteblock and finding Psii sprawled lazily on his pile of cushions. “I really, really don’t want you to do this.” He took a deep breath and raised a hand to stop Psii from replying just yet, because otherwise he might lose what little aplomb he’d managed to scrap together. “But it’s not my choice.” 

“No,” Psii said, voice low and eyes narrowed suspiciously, “it’s not.” 

Eridan swallowed hard and stepped further into the block, noticing with a frown as Psii clutched the dark blue pendant hanging from his neck. He took another deep breath and let out in a sigh that was almost a whimper. 

“I don’t want you to do this, because I’m selfish and bratty and immature and I want to spend the rest of however long I’ve got left to live with you.” Eridan licked his lips, swaying in place, and clenched his hands into fists at his sides to try and force himself to keep going. “But it’s your choice. And I love you more than anything in the world. I meant everything I said, before, so I can’t really say I’m sorry I said it, but you do deserve better.” 

Psii pushed himself to his feet with the cane and a judicious use of his powers, walking over to wrap his arms around Eridan. He ignored the tears and the ugly things curling in Eridan’s tone, because he too was selfish and bratty and immature and he wanted to savor the moment, the unspoken promise in Eridan’s words. Because he was old and tired and his stupid child of a moirail clutched to him so hard Psii was sure there would be bruises if he looked. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, quiet, forehead pressed to Eridan’s chest, “for putting you through this. I’m sorry it has to be this way.” 

“Don’t be,” Eridan said, swallowing hard, “it’s your life, you get to do with it whatever you like.” There was a small pause. “And I get to do whatever I like with mine.” 

Psii’s eyes snapped open at the words, and he pulled back with a snarl. Eridan gave him a wet smile that did not bode well for anyone. 

“No,” Psii snarled, clutching the cane with a white knuckled grip before trying to smack Eridan with it. 

Eridan caught it in his hand, instead, grip just as tight. 

“You made your choice,” he said, swallowing hard, “and I made mine. You’re not doing this alone.” 

“What are you going to do?” Psii demanded, red and blue lightning crawling all over his skin as he glowered threateningly. “Throw your tablet at the damn thing?” 

Eridan found it strangely easy to shrug in the face of his moirail’s wrath, and wondered absently if this was what Psii had felt, watching him lose his temper over the news. He smiled a little humorlessly, not quite amused by the role reversal but nonetheless able to appreciate the irony. 

“Make sure you’re not distracted, more like.” Eridan shrugged. “Someone has to take care of the girl.” 

Psii stopped, startled, and that moment was all Eridan needed to pull hard on the cane and drag him into a hug, resting his chin atop his head. The static crackled dangerously for a long moment, but then slowly quieted down, bit by bit. 

“You don’t get to die for me,” Psii hissed, giving in and clutching the back of Eridan’s jacket hard enough to tear it with his claws. 

Eridan laughed, and it sounded like glass shards jiggling inside a bottle. 

“You don’t get to die alone,” he promised, with enough sincerity to make Psii shake. “Shoosh, Mituna.” Eridan smiled, pressing his lips to his moirail’s forehead. “It will be alright.” 

It probably wouldn’t, but Eridan had nothing to lose by hoping otherwise. 

At that point, he almost believed it, even. 

  


* * *

  


The Imperial Palace was as breathtaking as ever. 

Enough that Eridan took a moment from his duties yelling at people to do their jobs, to stare at it in the first rays of moonlight. The moons were big and almost full, shining up above the horizon, and the palace was an interesting silhouette that broke the monotony of the waves, in the background. Then Eridan found himself smiling and turned around to snarl ferally at his men, watching with amusement as his admins scampered around the hangar as fast as their feet could carry them. He found his mood much improved, after making peace with his moirail. It didn’t matter if Karkat kept running into him all the time, doing a pitiful job of hiding his attempts at keeping an eye on him. It didn’t matter if his tablets exploded by the dozen in the last few days, since he steadily refused to answer any of Sollux’s messages. 

He had a choice and he was going to go through with it, and the certainty was liberating. 

Because he was going to die, and he knew it. And in the face of his own mortality, Eridan found himself better equipped to embrace it, than the last time he’d been so certain it was looming over his head. There were no small, too bright, too white cells that smelled of sanitizer and despair. There was no Song in the back of his mind, no childish tantrum refusing to own up his own guilt. Instead, he had furtive glances at his moirail, who kept puzzling over his decision and trying to find the smallest hesitation to cling to. It only made Eridan stronger, instead, giving him something to focus, something that actually mattered and made him feel like he had a place, after all. 

Eridan had spent the last leg of their journey to Alternia leaving little bits of himself behind, tiny trinkets in the weirdest places, like a defiant cry of _I was here_ and _I existed_ , because he knew damn well that was all he was going to get in the long run. There would be no hymns written about him, no entries in history schoolfeeding detailing his exploits. He was nobody of importance and nobody would care enough to remember him in the long run. His quadrantmates would mourn and move on, and perhaps one day look back and remember him with fondness. Eridan kept stashing away those reminders, wondering how long it would take, before they were all gone, and found he couldn’t exactly care. 

He had a choice, and he had made up his mind. 

He was busy contemplating that line of thought – really, the only line of thought he could fall back into, anymore – when he found himself yanked off his feet by a strong hand holding onto his jacket. Eridan did what any smart troll would do in such a situation, and squeaked in surprise. Then he _oof_ ’d loudly, when his back was unceremoniously slammed into a wall. 

“What have you done?” Equius demanded, voice low and sibilant in a way Eridan had only heard when Nepeta was in danger. 

“What?” Eridan wheezed, reaching to grab the thick wrist effortlessly holding him up and kicking his feet in the air somewhat pathetically. 

“What have you _done?_ ” Equius growled, each syllable closer to a wordless snarl than the last. “Captor is beside himself, harping about what you did.” 

Eridan blinked. Then snorted. Then gave up pretenses and laughed with a scream folded in the sound. 

“You’re cute when you’re worried,” he said, grinning with all his teeth. “Now put me down and let’s go have this conversation in private, mmm?” 

Equius released his grip on his clothes, and Eridan landed on his feet, wobbling just a little. He took a moment to straighten his jacket and then punched Equius’ shoulder almost affectionately, before stalking back towards his ship. In truth, he had no idea what he was going to say or how the conversation would go, but he’d made his choice and the knowledge helped ease the burden a little. 

And he owed it to his quadrantmates, to tell them if not the truth, at least convincing enough lies to lessen the blow when it came. 

  


* * *

  


“I love you,” Aradia said, staring at the monitors and the metal planes that housed Sollux most of the time. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way.” 

She raised her wands and aimed them at the core, but when the Darkness hit the planes, it leaked inside, instead of blasting everything in its way. And it sank in deep, chasing thoughts and numbers and impulses, muddling them all up with the verses from the Song, carrying them astray without really letting them realize it was doing so. She felt Sollux fight against it, felt the static grow as his powers reacted instinctively to the contamination. 

“You’ll understand,” she promised, leaning in to kiss a monitor, “when the time comes.” 

And then she vanished, leaving him to try and purge himself clean and thus too distracted to stop what needed to be done. 

  


* * *

  


“I’m sorry,” Eridan said, running his fingers through Equius’ hair a little thoughtfully. 

The conversation had, predictably, derailed into sex, and he didn’t regret it, per se. But he still had a conscience – and the novelty of it had yet to wear off – so he found himself lying on the concupiscent platform, not quite bothered by the weight of his kismesis’ body pinning him in place. He ached, like he always did after a tumble with Equius, everything between his legs throbbing, raw or swollen. Or all three. But he found himself strangely guilt-free, even if rationally he knew he shouldn’t. He didn’t want the guilt, because he knew himself; better than he’d like sometimes. He knew guilt would muddle everything up and then that stark clarity he’d been working with since his talk with Aradia would vanish into ether and he’d have to face the music with the panic boiling in his gut. But he also wanted the guilt, in a masochistic, self-destructive way fueled purely out of self-loathing. Because the guilt would mean he wasn’t as terrible as he knew himself to be. Guilt would imply accepting that what he planned to do was wrong – and he knew it was wrong, he knew it viscerally and logically and _he still didn’t care_. 

Equius made a questioning noise in the back of his throat, opening an eye to look at Eridan curiously. Eridan laughed quietly, scratching the base of a horn. 

“For being a shitty kismesis,” he explained, sincere in a way Equius couldn’t possibly understand. “I’m sorry, you deserve better.” 

“Shut up,” Equius snorted, closing his eyes again and shifting to lay a bit more purposefully on Eridan. “I’ll _make_ you better.” 

_No, you won’t_ , Eridan didn’t say, even though he felt an almost reckless urge to do. 

“Pitched for you,” he said instead, and reminded himself he was an asshole. 

  


* * *

  


“Why?” Terezi asked, posture neutral and expression betraying nothing. 

Psii thought it was a good sign. Terezi was more rational than Eridan, after all. He had been dreading this conversation, anyway, because he was not alone anymore. He’d made bonds and anchored his sense of self with them, and now he had to snap them loose or drag his loved ones down the pit with him. And that was unacceptable. 

Terezi waited for his reply patiently, feet firmly planted on the sandy shore, ignoring the way the breeze played with her hair. And Psii stalled a moment longer, trying to burn the image of her into his mind, for when the time came. 

“Because it’s what I want,” he said, eventually, shrugging almost delicately. “Because it’s long overdue. Because I might as well do some good, while I’m at it.” 

“Because you’re tired,” Terezi summarized bluntly, tilting her head back to take a good sniff at him. Psii yelped loudly when she smacked his thigh with her cane, hard enough to make him wobble dangerously. Terezi snorted. “I told you not to do anything stupid if I wasn’t there to yell at you about it.” 

“I haven’t—“ 

“You convinced yourself I would fight you over this, didn’t you?” Terezi arched an eyebrow, head tilted to the side, and Psii sagged, not quite slouching so much as ducking his head guiltily. “You self-sacrificing idiot,” Terezi sighed, almost fondly. “I absolutely hate the idea of you doing this, but it’s me, Mituna. I always do the things no one wants to do, starting by myself.” 

“Eridan flipped his shit and then went to the Handmaid,” Psii muttered, a little self-consciously. 

“Eridan used to wear a cape and call himself Lord Orphaner,” Terezi deadpanned, reaching out to smack Psii again. He blocked it with his own cane, snorting. “It’s in his nature to be melodramatic.” 

“Right,” Psii said, tilting his head to the side and actively trying to smack her shoulder, which she blocked easily. “So you calling yourself Neophyte Redglare means…?” 

“That I have excellent genetics,” Terezi said crisply, changing her stand and holding her cane like a sword. “And that I am a sensible, history-aware troll who always strives to make the right choice.” 

Psii hesitated for just a moment before giving in, tension sliding off his back by degrees as he assumed his own stand, still holding the cane as a cane, because he didn’t need it to be anything else but a cane. And he felt the rush of hysterical relief spread throughout his body, because there was something in Terezi’s smile that made him ashamed of having doubted her. 

“You’re so full of shit, Pyrope,” Psii said, laughing as he lunged, half on his feet, half on his psionics, and smiled as the canes clanked in between them. 

“Yes,” she said, and tilted her body sideways, looking for an opening. “And most of it is how much I love you, you ridiculous wreck of a troll.” 

The sand was warm under their feet, and the roaring of the waves was almost like music to complement their fight. They were laughing, as they clashed, and the laughter filled Psii with a strange serenity that confirmed to him he was doing the right thing. That he was allowed to go, free of regrets. 

“Thank you,” he said, wheezing as he let himself fall to the ground next to Terezi, when the moons were low in the horizon and dawn was already threatening to arrive. 

“I regret knowing you,” Terezi said, not looking at him as she slid closer against his side. “Because I regret having to let you go. But I’m also grateful, because I know I wouldn’t be who I am, if I hadn’t met you and loved you like I do. I’m going to miss you.” 

“I love you too,” Psii whispered, leaning in to press his lips against her forehead and gathering her into a tight hug. 

  


* * *

  


“What now?” Eridan snapped, as he entered his block in the palace and found Aradia sitting on the windowsill. 

His fear of her was gone, replaced by the ever growing pile of lies and false smiles he’d been delivering to everyone he knew, as he steeled himself for what he had to do. 

“A gift,” Aradia said, giggling at his tone. “Since you’ve made your choice.” She raised a hand almost level to her face, palm side up, and watched as darkness and then light gathered in it. She jumped off her perch and approached Eridan slowly, even as he tensed and snarled on reflex at the torn reality writhing above her hand. And then a wand appeared, sucking up both darkness and light, pulsing in place as if it refused to exist and knew it was not meant to be there. “Hope,” Aradia said, reaching out to hold the wand carefully, “for success or for a way out, if you decide otherwise.” 

“I’ve made my choice,” Eridan said, eyes narrowed. “I’ve done as you said.” He’d lied and schemed and kept the truth only to himself, well aware of what doing so meant. “I’m not backing out.” 

“Making a choice not knowing what you’ll face is easy,” Aradia said, voice gentle and eyes filled with compassion that threatened to make Eridan ill. “You have not yet committed to a choice, not until you’re there and you see what you must face against. Take this as a tool, for you to do whatever you want with.” A funny expression crossed her face, before she chuckled. “A hatchright, if you will. Hope has always been meant to be wielded by you, for better or for worse.” 

“What do you mean?” Eridan asked, licking his lips and ignoring the way he felt a strange yearning to snatch the wand off her hands. He refused to indulge the compulsion and instead focused on her, reminding himself who he was dealing with. 

"The thing is…" Aradia trailed off, twirling the wand between her fingers thoughtfully. It was unlike her other wands, which were thicker and shorter, with bands of white and black spiraling along their lengths and tiny skulls decorating the thicker ends. It was thin and long and white, a strange glow coming from its core, tantalizing and terrifying all at once. "The thing is, Hope is power without limits, without masters to tell you what to do. But also without anything but yourself to anchor you to who and what you are and why you’re doing what you’re doing. Hope is the _why not_ , to yell it at the universe at large, and the power to go through with it.” She smiled, as if stumbling upon a very important realization, and stretched her hand to Eridan, offering him the strange wand thick end first, not unlike one would offer a sword. “So let’s find out, eh? If you’ve got enough of yourself to not lose everything to it this time.” 

“This time?” Eridan squeaked, uneasy, and pulled back the hand that had reached out for the wand almost on instinct. 

"Different time, different place," Aradia replied, dismissive. "It might be different this time." 

“ _Might_ ,” Eridan squeaked again, not quite sure he wanted to touch the wand after all, even if it seemed to be calling to the deepest corners of his soul. 

"Well, that’s the fun of it, really!" Aradia laughed and waved the wand, nudging it into Eridan’s slack fingers until he had an unsteady hold on it, "it’s your choice.” 

But Eridan was no longer listening, entranced by the sheer pulse of power in his hand, the sheer possibilities blooming like flowers behind his eyelids and the realization he could… _he could…_

  


* * *

  


Eridan could feel the wand pulsing inside his sylladex, calling out to him almost sweetly. He found whatever fear he still had left in him completely evaporated in the face of the wordless power of the wand. He had resisted the urge to test it, even though he knew it was stupid to ride to battle with an untested weapon, because he was afraid he would not be able to stop, once he started. So he flung the wand into the depths of his sylladex and contented himself to hum along with the echoes of its power, as he went about preparing the last details. It wasn’t on him, to make the call when they should leave, but he wanted to be ready. He wanted to make sure there was nothing holding him back, when Psii decided it was time. 

So Eridan went about tidying up his affairs, writing letters about things he’d never said before, balancing budgets he’d never bothered to notice and in general avoiding everyone he loved, lest he found himself convinced to not go through with it. The wand was a tool for success, or temptation to fall into, and Eridan was horribly aware how likely he was to choose the easy path if only he was offered it. So instead he made himself busy and did his best to pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary with his actions. Pyrope had approached him, fresh after talking with Psii, and she had slapped him for no reason other than she knew and understood why he could afford to go after Psii, while she couldn’t. It had felt almost like a hug, in that strange Pyrope way of hers that made Eridan remember he’d never liked her much, before, but now it didn’t matter at all. Nothing really mattered anymore, because once all was over he’d be gone and no one would care. 

After he went through with his choice, he knew nothing would ever be the same again. 

The funny thing was, that since he’d gotten the wand, he kept forgetting what he’d chose, only the constant pressure of knowing that he had to go through with it, no matter what. That when the time came, he’d know. And he knew he would not be welcome, once all was said and done. 

Because his moirail was going to die, and he couldn’t let it happen just like that. 

“I’m sorry,” Feferi said softly, startling Eridan out of his thoughts. 

He turned around and found her in his doorway, clad in silk and sparkling regalia, as lovely as he’d always known her to be. And something inside him throbbed, something bled and screamed and wanted to reach for the wand and… 

“I know you are,” Eridan replied, mastering the impulse for all he felt a pang of something close enough to hatred, because she had told him, she had opened the doors, it was all her fault… “He made his choice.” 

“I just want you to know that I really am sorry it came to this,” Feferi said, stepping further into the room, unaware of how close Eridan was to reaching for that wand and bending reality to his will. “That if there was any other way, I’d take it over this.” 

“I know you didn’t do this out of spite,” Eridan said, forcing himself to smile, “I don’t blame _you_.” 

But he did blame someone, he supposed, startled by the fact the words were true. It had been a while, now, since he’d last said something and meant it, and the realization was startling. Yes, he did blame someone, someone he didn’t know, buried in the bottom of the ocean, the one whose life started it all. And he thought it was irrational, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He was too far gone for fear or guilt or anger or hate or anything that wasn’t the certainty that he had a choice and he needed to make the right one. 

“I’m going to hug you now,” Feferi said, a little awkwardly, and Eridan realized for the first time that there were tears in her eyes, “okay?” 

How long had he dreamed about this? How long had he longed to have her in his arms again? He returned the hug tightly, almost sincerely, but knew it wasn’t like he’d thought it’d be. He wasn’t in love with her, he wasn’t still an open, bleeding wound in the shape of her smile anymore. And she wasn’t here to revise her statements and admit she’d been wrong. She wasn’t there to take all back and return them to what they had been meant to be, because they had never been meant to be at all. 

“It’ll be alright, Fef,” Eridan whispered, petting her back, “I’ll _make_ it alright.” 

  


* * *

  


“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Arthur said, the moment he saw Aradia, causing her to break into giggling. “Fuck _me_ ,” he went on, looking at her warily. “I’m a fucking helmsman. A helmsman! What do you even expect me to do?” 

Because he knew the Handmaid, he knew what happened to those who didn’t comply. He had always expected to never run into her, though, not since forsaking his place among his ancestor’s court and turning into a helmsman. But there she was, clad in darkness and something eerie, smiling at him like she could read his mind. 

Which he wasn’t entirely sure she _couldn’t_ do. 

“Make your ancestors proud,” she said, shrugging gently, because he didn’t need to be cajoled or manipulated, and that’s why she liked dealing with the Imoogi best. They made things simple, even if they’d long forgotten the rules of the game. “You’ll know what to do, when the moment comes.” 

And then she was gone, leaving Arthur with a million questions and an equal amount of swear words hanging off his mouth. 

So he did the first thing he could think of, to honor his ancestors, and went to get himself piss drunk. 

  


* * *

  


“Alright,” Psii said, turning off the husktop, “I’m ready.” 

Eridan looked up from his tablet, stared at him for a long, long moment, and then put it down. 

“Okay,” he said, swallowing hard and trying to ignore the roar of conflicting emotions boiling up in his gut. He began to understand, what Aradia meant, about making a choice before and now, that he had to face the music. He swallowed again, and stood up. “I’ll… see you there.” 

“Probably not,” Psii muttered, with a half shrug. “Big battle and all, I imagine.” 

“But I’ll be there,” Eridan insisted, reaching out to grab him and stopping short because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go once he did. “I’ll do my part.” 

“I love you,” Psii said, reaching out to kiss Eridan and clinging for a moment. “Take care of the girl for me.” 

And then Aradia was there, hovering midair, smiles and darkness, and Eridan found his throat locked up and unable to make a sound, as he watched Psii take her hand and vanish into nothing. 

“I promise,” he whispered, long after they were gone, to the silence all around him, “I love you.” 

  


* * *

  


Eridan methodically removed every ring and piercing, before heading for the shower. He washed himself and let the water pound on his back for a moment after he was done, before he stepped out and prepared to dress himself. He was stalling, he knew, but he also found the desperation waning. He knew what he had to do, and he knew it didn’t matter how long he took to get there, he would arrive just in time. 

Because that was how these things went. 

He gathered all his rings and his piercings in his hands and left them on his desk, next to the letters he had written and wasn’t sure would ever be delivered. Then he took off his glasses and stepped out of his block, feeling strangely free without his uniform or any of the physical reminders that had always tied him down to reality. All he had was the wand, pulsing in his sylladex, and the echo of Aradia’s voice in his skull, reminding him of the consequences of the choice he had to make. 

Had already made. 

Eridan swallowed hard and started down the corridor, paying no mind to the sudden screams, untouched by the miasma of fear spreading all around him. 

He had a choice to make, nothing else mattered. 

  


* * *

  


Gamzee laughed like the world was ending, because he knew that in a way it _was_. 

He laughed and laughed as he rampaged through the palace, walls crumbling and trolls reduced to bloodstains in his wake. He fueled the panic with his powers, threatening to make the very foundations of the building shake. He made his best to make his fury seem irrational, like he’d gotten drunk on rage and couldn’t stop. But in truth he was sober and clear-headed as he’d seldom been all his life, and every strike and every death was a carefully staged display to gather everyone’s attention on him and not on the real actors just barely stepping up the stage. 

He laughed and laughed, feeling in his awareness as Eridan shifted around the palace, busy with his own thoughts and his own choices, ignoring all the rest. And Gamzee thought Eridan wasn’t worth of the part he had to play, but also knew that was precisely why he had to be the one to play it. 

“Makara,” Terezi said, standing in his way, sword at the ready and voice sharp like a whip. 

And Gamzee _knew_ , he knew she knew and was ready to play her part, even if she didn’t understand it. Even if she couldn’t hope to make sense of it. So he stood up and roared a laugh at her, but forced his mind away from hers, so she could fight back. And she did, dodging his strikes and leaving angry lines along his skin, where her sword bit him like a snake. And he laughed, and laughed, because it was the beginning of the end, and by the time it was all over, it would be too late for them to start getting their understanding on. 

“That is enough,” Terezi snarled, barely avoiding getting crushed by a club, her glasses askew and her breathing raged. “Enough!” 

“No,” he purred, “not just yet.” 

And he lunged. 

  


* * *

  


“My Empress—“ 

Equius found Feferi standing by a balcony, unruffled by the chaos spreading around the palace, staring at the sky. He didn’t know why he had been spared the horrors of the Grand Highblood’s chucklevoodoos, but as soon as he’d realized it, he’d sent his troops to stop him and he had set out to find the Empress and make sure she was unharmed. He had no earthly clue where Gamzee had come from, or when he’d arrived, but there was no denying he was there, wreaking havoc and cackling in glee about it. 

“It’s okay,” Feferi said, not turning to look at him as she stared at Eridan, a tiny dot of grey, walking up the shore, “it’s going to be okay.” 

“I don’t—“ 

But Equius’ words were interrupted by the door being blasted open with psionics, and both turned, startled, to see Sollux hovering in place. Equius was horrified to see blood pouring down his ears and his eyes and his mouth, and wires still trailing behind him awkwardly, as if he had torn himself free from the core. 

“Tell me,” Sollux hissed, red and blue crackling all around him, completely ignoring Equius and focusing his attention exclusively on Feferi, “that you didn’t.” 

Feferi pulled away from the window, casually pressing a hand on Equius’ arm to push him to the side, and smiled serenely in the face of Sollux’s rage. 

“I did what I thought best,” she said, a touch uncertain. 

Any other troll might have taken a moment to consider the situation before reaching the conclusion Sollux did. But Sollux was not another troll, he was himself, for better or for worse, and the look of horror on his face made Feferi flinch. 

"Tell me," he whispered, hands shaking in panic and fury, "that you did not do what I think you did. Tell me you did not send out my Ancestor and his dumbfuck moirail to kill the Heiress." 

Feferi tilted her chin up, mouth set in a hard line. Equius made a strangled sound in the back of his throat, staring at Feferi with terror in his eyes. 

“I did what I thought best,” she replied, ignoring the throb of heartbreak pulsing in the back of her mind. “And nothing more.” 

Elsewhere, they could tell Karkat had finally made his way to Gamzee, because the stench of fear lessened by degrees. Sollux snarled wordlessly and turned over to Equius, who was still trying to articulate anything coherent. 

“Zahhak,” Sollux snapped, purposely not looking at Feferi, “hurry up, let’s go get KK and fix this mess.” 

Then he turned and stormed out the block without looking back. Equius turned back to Feferi, helpless and terrified, unable to decide what emotion to settle on. Feferi smiled gently and shrugged. 

“Go ahead,” Feferi said, making Equius’ feel uneasy at her smile. 

_For all the good it’ll do_ , she didn’t say, as she watched him run after Sollux, steps thundering down the corridor. 

“It’s for the best,” Feferi told herself, confident enough she could almost believe it. 

She had no illusions that she would ever do, though. 

  


* * *

  


“He told me to stop you,” Agness said, leaning against the wall as she watched Eridan rummage around to start the bike. “By any means necessary, even!” She laughed in the back of her throat, hollow. “And then he blew up my tablet and the entirety of the Imperial Network crashed at once.” 

“He’s angry,” Eridan whispered, smiling wryly as he sawed through the chain securing the bike in place. “Understandably.” 

“He’s an asshole,” Agness deadpanned and pushed herself off her wall, then shoved Eridan out of the way. 

Eridan stared as she kneeled down and started fiddling with the lock. Planetbound technology was different from what he was used to, less advanced and more reliable on simplicity than flourish. Agness used a long, thin needle to pick the lock and then smiled smugly when it clicked open. 

“I can’t help but notice you aren’t stopping me,” Eridan croaked, as she stood up, “which, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad, it’s just I’ve been kind of trying to talk myself into knocking you out for the better part of ten minutes and now you’re helping me.” 

“I have no idea what you’re trying to do,” Agness said, laughing, “And I honestly don’t care!” She held his hand in hers, grip tight enough to jolt Eridan back to reality, out of the bubble of panic still churning in his gut, because he kept trying not to think of what was going on back in the palace and not being very successful at it. “I trust you to do the right thing, even if it doesn’t seem like it.” 

“I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing,” Eridan confessed, turning around and folding into her arms. “I’m not—“ 

“Shoosh, Princess,” Agness said, patting his back and then gently pushing him back. “Just do what feels right.” 

“It’s not that easy,” Eridan snapped, and regretted it because it made the panic sharper in his gut. He swallowed hard. “I thought I’d made a choice, and now I think I might change it, but if I change it—“ 

“Do you _want_ me to stop you?” Agness asked, needles already in her hands. 

“ **No** ,” and Eridan himself was surprised by the sharpness behind his own tone. 

“Then go,” and she smiled, slapping his arm affectionately, “I’ll buy you as much time as I can, so you can make up your mind.” 

“Agness—“ 

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Agness said, shrugging, “ _and I don’t care_. I just know where my loyalties lie.” 

Eridan leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek. 

“Thank you.” 

He didn’t stay to hear her reply. Somehow, he didn’t need to. 


	3. stampedes board trains, bound for past the grave

  


* * *

  


_stampedes board trains, bound for past the grave_

  


* * *

  


Arthur spat out the last of the bile trying to force itself up his throat and leaned heavily against the wall, trying to regain his bearings. He could still taste the terror in his mouth, his blood rushing in a riot down his veins. He was dizzy and panicking and there was something wrong with the world, on a visceral level, that he couldn’t quite describe. He’d never found himself on the receiving end of chucklevoodoos before, but he found they weren’t much to his liking. He took another moment to try and calm himself, breathing slow and deep like Psii had taught him, and only on the third inhale realized he’d cradled himself in violet light, as if his powers could somehow shield him from the onslaught against his mind. He relaxed, bit by bit, until he could think clearly and ignore the commotion of panicked trolls scurrying down the palace halls like rats. 

He had no interest in finding out what had possessed the Grand Highblood to go on a rampage – nor was he in a hurry to figure out where the fuck he’d even come from in the first place – so he turned away, towards the long walkway that led to the pristine shore surrounding the west wing of the palace. Because it might have been the fear boiling his pain into a fine paste, but he could swear he’d seen Eridan walk past him, when the clown’s attack hit in earnest. 

And he knew that look, the way his jaw looked set and firm. 

It did not bode well, for anyone, really. 

So he stumbled along, forcing his legs to carry him and resisting the urge to try and fly, because he still wasn’t entirely in control of himself, and the last thing anyone needed was a goddamn crater in the premises. One foot and then the other, over and over again, until it was only the slight shift of sand under his feet and his vision widened to encompass the world beyond himself. In the distance, he saw the hangar doors open wide, and a single troll sitting on the sand, watching the horizon. He recognized the horns and the defiant tilt of her chin, and felt something dreadful harden in his gut. 

“He’s gone, isn’t he?” He asked, although he didn’t really need an answer, because even now, he still couldn’t help but want to offer a ghost of friendship, for all he knew it’d be scorned. 

Agness hummed in the back of her throat and stood up languidly, limbs loose and eyes murderously clear. And Arthur knew, that wherever Eridan had gone, he’d left with no intention of coming back. Long ago, so long the memories should have already faded by now, he sat by and received the news of his brothers’ deaths with resignation, because there had been nothing for him to do. But this was not then, and he refused to sit back and let it happen all over again. He was powerful, he knew it for a fact. And he was too much himself to let his brother face death all on his own. 

“Okay,” he said, carefully gathering his psionics to his skin, setting his jaw with the same determination Eridan’s had been. 

He should have shot off into the distance at a terrifying speed, but his feet barely rose from the sand when Agness whistled loud and sharp, and the ground exploded in bright lime green and slime caught up Arthur without warning, slamming him back down hard enough to stun him for a moment. 

“No,” Agness said, eyes cold and smile cruel, as her pet uncoiled itself and crawled to her side, crowding around her ankles, “it’s not.” 

“Are you insane?” Arthur snarled, pushing himself up and then crying out when the needles bit skin and sank deep into his flesh. “He’s going to _die_.” 

Agness fell into a fighting stance, feet planted firmly on the ground and hands full of needles that looked wicked in the dim light. At her feet, tendrils of slime raised as if to strike, and Arthur told himself he was not afraid. Could not be. He was powerful and determined and knew what needed to be done. 

“I know,” Agness said, voice soft, even though the sound made Arthur recoil as if struck. 

“I’m not going to fight _you_ ,” Arthur snapped, giving a step back. 

Then he tried to take off again. And again he came crashing down, this time due to the needle stuck squarely on the port on his shoulder. He writhed on the sand, reaching out to snap it out and hissing as blood gushed out from the tender wound. Agness remained impassive, refusing to raise to the bait when he kicked a flurry of sand in her direction. 

“Even if you do,” she sneered, “I’m not going to let you stop him.” 

Arthur hesitated for a moment, but then the word rang in his ears – dead, dead, _dead_ – and he leaped at her, snarling gruesomely. 

  


* * *

  


There was a city, buried in the deepest ocean, cradled in the arms of the Interloper. A city of ghosts anchored in reality by something unnatural and foreign to the world they existed in. A city made of marble and quartz, glinting with a light of its own, full of stolen time. 

And Eridan had seen it, before. 

He knew who the ghosts were and why they gathered there. He knew who kept them trapped inside the echoes of their own lives, forever wandering across the shifting halls, under arches that couldn’t decide on a shape. He had seen it before, but he had never been in it. Because it was a sanctuary for the highest of the high, the cradle of the Empire, and above all, a city of ghosts. 

And he was not, despite it all, a ghost. 

He rode the bike close to the surface of the sea, disrupting the waves with the tail of hot air left in his wake. In his sylladex, the wand purred temptingly, pulsing with power that made his skin crawl and his knees weak. Already he could feel the world narrowing down, the echoes of madness past rising to the foreground of his mind, peeling away everything that it deemed unimportant to complete his task. He felt hysterical laughter bubble in his gut, because of course he was the one who had to do this, he was the only one insane enough to kill himself through sheer stubborn, single-minded determination. 

And it was almost ridiculously simple, really; he had a task and it needed to be done. 

He felt the wind slice against his face as he pushed forward, faster than he’d ever rode before, even though he didn’t need to. Because Time was in Aradia’s hands, and she would take Psii exactly when and where he needed to go, not a moment later. But he still felt like rushing, because his own madness could still ruin this. He needed to get it done before it destroyed him or made him change his mind and turn his rage and his wand – his, his, _his_ – against the world and everyone in it. So he pushed himself as hard as he could, and all around him, it was just endless sea and endless sky and the cacophonous silence between his ears. 

When he reached the island, he didn’t so much land as crash the bike into the sand. He should have broken his neck with that fall, but all he had to show for it was where his clothes had torn by the impact and the fact he laid on the shore for nearly ten minutes trying to convince his body to move again. His gills ached at his sides, bruised by the hit and the awkward tugs he’d subjected them to, removing the rings. There was a persistent taste of blood in the back of his throat, but he convinced himself it was nerves. 

And that was bullshit, he was not allowed to be nervous. 

Or scared. 

Or tired. 

Or hurt. 

He clung to his rage and the hyperfocused madness gnawing at his mind, and finally forced himself upright with a growl. He sat there a moment longer, ignoring the throbbing and pulsing of his arms and legs, and then stood up awkwardly, feeling as if the sand were shifting and sinking under his feet. It probably wasn’t, though. 

Probably. 

Instead he stared at the wreck of had once been a hive, and before that, a ship. He studied the rotten wood and the greenery encroached in it, as if trying to claim it for its own. Eridan laughed between his teeth, a tiny hiss of unpleasant sound, because it belonged to him. By bloodright and hatchright and heartbreak. It was _his_. He knew what needed to be done. He knew what he would do. Whether he could or not was no longer an issue, after all. So he eyed the wreck sprawled across the tiny island and laughed at himself, because he was melodramatic and would be, til the end. 

He needed to raid a city of ghosts, so what better for that, than a ghost ship to get there? 

He raised the wand – he didn’t remember when it had fallen into his hand, it was just there, like a fifth limb he’d never known was missing until he was reunited with it again, weightless and precious – and pointed square at the middle, where the ship had originally been snapped in half. 

And the wand exploded into light that cradled the ship and filled Eridan with such deep-rooted pleasure and satisfaction, it stole his breath away. It felt _good_ , to rearrange the world to his liking. To push and pull and make things into what he wanted. The wand pulsed in time with his heartbeat, deep and powerful and endless. 

And high above, the ship regrew its lost planks and its broken masts mended themselves. Translucent white sails stretched down, gleaming like pearls. Old wood creaked and heaved, but Eridan held the wand steady, brow furrowed and lips folded back into a snarl. He couldn’t stop, _he would not stop_ , until it was done. And so the light spread like poison across the ship, from bow to stern, along the masts and deep into the brig. The light brought up the shadows perpetually caught glimmering across the surface and Eridan’s memory, until _Sadalsuud_ sprung forth with a whine of stolen time and defiant ghosts. 

"All hands on deck!" Eridan hollered, stomping down the conjured planks that held his weight like he wasn’t there at all, wand still tightly clenched in one hand. "Batten down the hatches!" 

Faint ghosts snarled back and scurried about the deck, obeying the command of who they thought their Captain. Eridan was too full of adrenaline by the reality surrounding him, to really ponder on that. His prey was barricaded behind illusion, death and superstition, and so if he needed to claim the name once more, to see this through, he’d do it without regrets. 

The green moon full and bloated in the sky, the pink moon hidden all together, the Orphaner Dualscar sailed the seas once more, clutching Hope in a tight fist. 

  


* * *

  


“It’s done now,” Gamzee crooned, cradling Karkat in his hands as he smiled, docile. “It’s all up and motherfucking done, now, best friend. There ain’t no stopping what be rolling down our way.” 

Karkat fought against the urge to let himself be cradled in his moirail’s arms, because his words made his entire being pulse with fear. He held on for a moment longer, until he realized the fear was wholly his own and Gamzee’s brand of mental poison was all gone. And then he pulled back, eyes wide and jaw slack, until his feet hit the ground unsteadily. 

“What did you do?” Karkat demanded, trying to stand tall and finding himself unable to pull the required emotional momentum behind the motion. “Just what the fuck did you just do, you mountain of pan rotten, writhing, mirthful _shit_?” 

“I suspect it’s less what he’s done,” Terezi wheezed, slowly pulling herself off the rubble she’d ended up in, holding up an injured arm, “and more what he’s made sure _we_ didn’t do.” 

Gamzee grinned at her and then threw his head back, howling a laugh of sheer delight. Karkat turned back to him with a snarl of frustration and something dangerously close to heartbreak. Because he knew Gamzee, he knew his moods and his cult and his madness, just as if they were his own. Because he’d felt it, pulsing in his veins, the drumming of serendipitous pale binding them as one. 

And he still had not foreseen this. 

Never in a million sweeps, he’d have thought Gamzee would turn against them. But no matter how Karkat tried to look at it, the corpses thrown every each way pointed to that possibility and that possibility only. It was his own damn fault, for ever thinking Gamzee tame. It was as much his failure as it was his responsibility. He had not seen it coming. He had not been there to stop it. He might as well have killed all those innocent fools with his bare hands. 

“Karkat!” 

He turned to the sound of his own name and found Sollux leaning against a doorway, a wreck of bloodied limbs and a trail of torn cables hanging off his back. There was something desperate and ominous, in Sollux’s face that made Karkat feel his insides turn to lead and fall to his knees. A moment later, Equius appeared behind Sollux, hovering anxiously as he tried to restrain himself and resist the urge to try and help keep Sollux upright. 

“We need to stop him,” Sollux wheezed, stumbling further in, but before Karkat could catch him, Terezi did, steading him against her side. 

“He _has_ stopped,” Karkat said, turning over to glare at Gamzee, who was now watching the whole exchange sitting on his haunches, elbows balanced on his knees. “He’ll be stopping for approximately forever and a fucking half when I’m done with him, trust me.” 

“Not Gamzee,” Sollux snarled, trying to pull away from Terezi and the temptation that was her embrace, “ _Eridan_.” 

And just like that, Karkat knew without a shadow of doubt the universe despised him. He heard it in the echo of his heart breaking in half. 

  


* * *

  


“You could do better than this,” Agness said, hissing her breath between her teeth as she tried to keep from panting outwardly. “But you won’t.” 

Arthur was not bothering with similar pretenses. He panted hard, a fist clenched full of sand and more needles he could count, hanging off his skin. His powers reared around him, preparing to strike, but at the last moment withered to nothing. Just like all previous attempts had. The needles were doing _something_ , though he wasn’t quite sure what. He felt heavier and heavier, the more the fight stretched on, in clear defiance of his seadweller endurance. He was tired and he was hurt, but every time she pushed him to the edge and he felt his temper soar, the image of Eridan’s face echoed in the back of his mind and he knew, without a shadow of doubt that no matter what else happened, he’d never forgive him if any harm came to her. And so he shifted gears again, falling back into the defensive, trying to worm his way past her, and finding it increasingly more frustrating that he couldn’t. 

“I don’t want to _hurt_ you, goddammit,” Arthur hissed, plucking off a handful of needles from his arm and feeling himself sway in place in pain. “I’m trying to _help_.” 

“Of course you are,” Agness laughed, rolling back into a tendril of slime that threw her high above, and then used the momentum and the altitude to rain needles down on him. “It’s just like you, isn’t it, Imoogi? You’re too damn arrogant to consider the possibility that your help isn’t wanted!” 

Arthur bounced the needles back with a flick of his arm, but the needles got caught in slime before they got even close to touching Agness. He kept forgetting about the damn slime monster, which was ridiculous, because it wasn’t something one could really ignore. Arthur wondered if this fight was going to keep going until Agness ran out of needles, and really hoped against that possibility. She seemed like the smart kind of person who stock up for situations like these. 

“He’s my _friend_ ,” he growled, rolling out of the way of another barrage of needles that didn’t seem to have an end. “I love him all the same.” 

That seemed to hit a nerve. Arthur pondered his victory for precisely three quarters of a second and then cried out. He hadn’t seen her move, but he had certainly felt it, when she dug her knee right into his gut. 

“Love?” From up close, there was a definite red tint to her eyes that he didn’t like one bit. And he remembered, almost as an afterthought, that tealbloods were highbloods too, of a sort, for all they rarely showed it. Arthur realized he might have inadvertedly pushed her into a rage but didn’t get much time to react before he felt her turn and her heel slammed into the side of his jaw. “What do _you_ know about love?” She hissed, in a tone that made Arthur realize he might have to actually work on defending himself, lest she decided _not_ to stop. “What do you know about _anything_? Take away your shiny lightshow, Imoogi, and what’s left? A scared, whiny brat who only knows how to _run away_.” 

He managed to dodge the next arc of her feet, and a kick that would have certainly left a bruise, but he couldn’t escape the needles aiming for a port along his spine. He screeched in pain, violet light gathering on reflex and shoving her and her needles away, more on instinct than anything else. Agness rolled on the sand and into the comfort of slime, which rose to encircle her as if in a cocoon, before it hardened into a crystal-like state. Arthur’s powers raged against it, but the slime resisted, and as he collapsed on his knees, bleeding and out of breath, the crystal melted back into a slick goop, purring at Agness’ feet. 

“Do you think you’re going to save him?” She taunted, lips pulled back into a snarl. “He doesn’t want you to save him. He wants you to let him go.” She slid into her stance again, hands full of needles and eyes gleaming with furious determination, everything else unimportant. “If you were his friend, you’d understand that.” 

And the balance tilted back again, because now it was Arthur who was angry, whose powers raged despite his best intentions. Agness sneered, not even flinching when the tide of violet slammed against the wall of crystal again, her pet shifting states without skipping a beat. It was almost fascinating, watching Arthur lose his temper. More so, she thought snidely, because he still hadn’t refuted any of her taunts properly. 

“ _Shut up!_ ” 

The unstoppable force met and bounced off the unmovable object. 

Agness smiled. 

She wasn’t the one that was in a hurry. 

  


* * *

  


“What’s been set in motion cannot be stopped now,” Feferi said, holding her hands before her to keep herself from fidgeting. 

She kept her eyes on Karkat, because looking at Sollux hurt too much right then and there. It was one thing, of course, to know the misunderstanding would occur, to be told beforehand it was coming, and shrug it off as part and parcel of her fate, and another quite different to stare at it in the face. To realize the person she loved most, the one she she trusted with everything, would look at her with scorn and fear. She knew, no matter what happened next, Sollux’s image of her was forever broken from then on. 

And her own image of him, as well. 

Things would change. And though it was change she so desperately needed, she found herself despairing at the price. 

“What exactly is going on?” Karkat asked, studiously staying far away from Gamzee, huddling close to Equius and Sollux, as if they could find strength in numbers. 

“The beginning of the end, best friend,” Gamzee purred, slumped against a wall, arm thrown carelessly over a pile of rubble. “The motherfucking last curtain drop.” 

“Change,” Feferi interrupted, giving Gamzee a disapproving look. She turned back to Karkat, almost pleading. “Change, for better.” 

“Or for worse,” Sollux snapped back, shoving Equius’ hands away, swaying in place but remaining upright on sheer stubbornness. “You don’t really know, do you?” 

“I know what Aradia told me,” Feferi replied, clutching her hands tightly, chin tilted up. 

“ _Aradia_ did this to me,” Sollux snarled, sparks raining along his arms, weak and worthless, the last remnants of his powers. 

“I trust her,” Feferi declared, calling to her all the dignity of her station, burying her heartbreak to the deepest corners of her being. 

“But you don’t trust _us_ ,” Sollux said, voice raw enough it made Equius wince and Karkat look away. “Not enough to tell us what’s going on. How to—“ 

“Stop it?” Feferi tilted her head to the side. “It can’t be stopped.” 

“Why? Because Aradia said so?” Sollux shook his head. “You don’t know that. You just say so because you _trust_ her.” He swallowed hard. “You still haven’t told me you didn’t.” And then, in a moment of inspired petty spite, he twisted the knife by saying it again. “Tell me you didn’t send Eridan and my Ancestor to kill your Heiress in your place.” 

Feferi stood against their stares, the weight of judgment in their eyes, and felt something inside her harden impossibly. Something that would never be soft again, no matter what. 

“You can’t stop it now,” she said, bitterness gleaming in each word, “I know it cannot be stopped now.” She turned away. “So there’s no need for me to stop you, if you don’t believe me.” 

Equius felt an urge to reach out to her, but then Sollux huffed air between his teeth and turned away, dragging Karkat with him. Equius stood there a moment longer, watching Feferi walk up to Gamzee and Terezi. The Grand Highblood bowed low to his Empress, reaching out to kiss the hem of her skirt. Terezi simply opened her arms a sliver, a tacit offer that made something uneasy sit at the pit of Equius’ gut. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, stepping back, turning to catch up with Sollux and Karkat, who were long gone. 

“Not nearly as much as I am,” Feferi’s words caught him just as he crossed the doorway. 

Equius felt the most absolute certainty she was telling the truth. 

  


* * *

  


“Are you scared?” 

Psii found himself hovering high above the ocean, his hand still held in Aradia’s. The question came from her, he realized, blinking slowly as he stared down at the enraged waves. He thought about it, stepping on the impulse to shrug off the question. He knew it in his bones, the end was near. He could afford a little honesty, after all. 

“No,” he admitted, letting go of her hand to hover by his own power, “I’m just tired.” 

Aradia nodded, kind smile hanging easily off her lips. Psii mused he should have been far more reluctant to trust her, all things considered. He’d never liked trolls who found it easy to be kind. It was just his nature. But still, for all he tried not to think about it, he found her kindness comforting. 

“Just a little longer now,” she promised, hovering away from him, summoning her wands with a flicker of her wrists. “It’ll be over soon.” 

Psii nodded dubiously, swallowing hard and finding the novelty of nerves almost comforting. A treacherous voice in his head wondered if this was how Meenah had felt, when she landed in Alternia and headed out to fight her Heiress. He wondered what she’d say, if she could see him now. She’d probably mock him for having hope. She’d be sure to point out the likelihood of failure, under the circumstances, too. He swallowed hard again, pushing the nerves and the memories of the old Empress – _his_ Empress – into the furthest corner of his mind. She was gone now, and he’d be too, soon enough. That was all that mattered. 

“Will it be alright?” He asked, just as Aradia raised her left hand to point at the sky, and used her right one to aim straight at the sea. “In the end?” 

“It’ll be as it’s meant to be,” she whispered, just as her eyes went hollow and black, and her entire body hummed with the power borrowed from her masters. “You know what to do.” 

Psii licked his lips and hesitated, just for a moment, trying to gather aplomb he was surprised he needed. He should have been ready for this, after so long. But he still needed to pull himself together, at the last moment. And then as he did, they arrived. One by one, all clad in green and something Other, all identical and withered; all determined to go down fighting, if they went at all. 

He turned in a full circle, watching countless faces with matching horns take their place around him. He felt his resolve strengthen in concert with theirs, and felt a strange kindred feeling towards them that only fellow death row prisoners share. They were tired, too, just like him. They were hoping to go quietly into the dark. But the world wouldn’t let them, just like it wouldn’t let him. So now they were all together, and together they would sail beyond the veil, after their task was done. 

“Let it end,” he whispered, floating back to the center and gathering his power to him, “for good.” 

He raised a hand, aiming straight at the green moon, the heart of the corruption, or so he’d been told. Red and blue lightning tore from his arm, racing to the target with a loud, hissing hum. And when it hit, it sank in deep, reaching for the core, tearing the surface with ridiculous ease. The green moon wobbled in place for a moment, trying to find its place in its axis, before the light died entirely. 

And then the silence was shattered by an explosion that rocked the entirety of Alternia to its core, as the wayward satellite was obliterated inside out. The night became instantly darker as what little dust remained dispersed into space, but though Psii smiled with grim satisfaction at the sight, he was not allowed time to gloat. 

In the depths of the ocean, the Interloper roared, outrage and disbelief tainting the notes of the song as it stretched through the water and gathered almost like a lash, ready to hit him. The Handmaids’ eyes glowed red, through the thick darkness all around them, and their powers combined presented a strong enough wall to contain Gl'byolb’s voice. Psii looked around him and then down below, as the water raged and shifted and then abruptly pulled back into a spiral that cleared the way to the very bottom. He stared at the writhing limbs and snarled loudly, feeling bits and pieces of his sanity crumble away inside his skull. 

“You’re next,” he muttered, a storm of red and blue pulsing against his skin, “I can promise you that.” 

Under the Handmaids’ watch and their tacit protection, he dived in with a scream, certain he couldn’t end this in a single blow but not seeing any reason why he shouldn’t at least try. 

  


* * *

  


Eridan guided the ship down, holding onto the helm with white knuckles. The ship obeyed reluctantly, water slicing down the sides and beating against the sails. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Because he commanded it, because he still held the wand in one hand, and so long as he did, nothing else mattered but what he wanted. The world was forced to obey each and any whims he had. The deeper they went, the fainter the ghosts became, but Eridan didn’t care. He was alone by the time he reached the forest of limbs, the ship going forward pushed by nothing more than will. His will. 

He felt the tentacles move, thick as a building, and expected them to hit, because even then he wasn’t certain his gambit would work. But then the fight started, high above, as the sea changed currents abruptly and Gl’boybl’s attention shifted to the surface, far away from him. Eridan snarled and turned the helm, his will focused, bracing as the tip of the ship slammed into the barrier separating the city from the rest of the world. He felt something push back, another’s will. An ancient, alien will, the same one that kept the city in place for eons, the one that wove chains of song around the Empresses and their Heiresses. For a moment, it was as if time stood still, when he felt that will towering above his own, claiming precedence. And he felt small and insignificant, just another fleeting life that left nothing behind where it stood once it was gone. 

Then he remembered who he was, what he’d promised to do. And he gathered his will and pushed back, fierce and stubborn. He was not done yet. It was not done yet. So he couldn’t stop, couldn’t back down. He pushed and pushed, and the ship crashed against the barrier, planks and magic shattering but not slowing. He saw the murky edge of the barrier coming closer and closer with each moment, and he knew that he’d either die when he pressed against it, or he’d go through, but he would not turn back. Could not. 

Just as he was about to hit it, a deafening crack echoed through the water and he winced but did not stop bracing himself. The cracks shone darkly on the barrier and he clutched the wand tightly, waiting for the collision and pushing every scrap of self he had left onto a single thought. 

_Let me through._

The ship disintegrated as the barrier collapsed inside and out, all at once, and Eridan found himself tumbling gracelessly into a void where Time and Space held no power. His awkward flight ended soon enough, all too soon for his own liking, and he pummeled into the ground, bones creaking upon impact. Beneath him, the floor was solid, marble worn and twisted, but whole. And just like he lay on the beach of his old home, trying to regroup and make sure he was whole again, he lay on the old bricks, breathing harshly, something that wasn’t water but also not quite air. He panted and gasped for breath, for a hold of himself. 

And then he pushed himself up, slowly, feeling bruises blooming under his skin, and laughed a pitiful, broken laugh as he found himself standing in the eye of the storm. He turned to see where he came from, but the barrier had mended itself, an opaque wall separating reality from this… whatever this truly was. It reminded him of the pockets of dark that Aradia had used to take him to see his Ancestor’s hall. Twisted and shapeless, defiant of the most basic laws that kept reality standing. He looked up, along the domed ceiling of the barrier, to where he could barely see across the fog, the squirming limbs of Gl'byolb. The white skin was almost shiny, in the shadows of the depths, gleaming threateningly as the Interloper writhed in her nest and screeched her fury up into the sky. Eridan shuddered in place, the echoes of that sound hammering into his skull even though they were muted by the Handmaids’ power. He licked his lips and clutched his wand tightly, and lowered his eyes to the center of the city, where a tree of tentacles anchored it in place. 

“How _dare_ you?” A hissing voice echoed behind him, and he barely had time to dodge the strike of a culling fork. Eridan stared wide eyed at the woman, tall and strong, clad in black and fuchsia and gold. She twirled her weapon easily, pulling it from the rubble it made of the street, even as the pebbles melted back into themselves. “You don’t belong here!” 

Her eyes were milky white, empty and lifeless. Eridan opened his mouth to retort something inane, and found himself scrambling away from another strike. And then another. Other women approached the commotion, with regal horns and imperial signs on their torn clothes. With pale white eyes. With wicked weapons in their hands. Eridan seized up his opponents, noting the wounds on them, the undeniable touch of death on them, and realized his task had just acquired a complication. This was a city of ghosts, after all. It made sense the ghosts would try to guard it from intruders. 

He found himself surrounded quite easily, so he did the only thing left to him. 

He ran. 

  


* * *

  


Karkat and Sollux found Agness and Arthur battling on the shore, needles and blood and trails of slime everywhere. Despite the odds, it looked like the tealblood was winning. Karkat reached out a hand to grab Sollux’s wrist, stopping for a moment to watch them clash. Doubt writhed inside Karkat’s skull, doubt and hope. Hope truly was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to him, a sickness that took root in his soul when he was young and never really stopped poisoning him as he grew older. Watching Agness keep Arthur at bay with trickery and dirty fighting made hope throb in his chest, and he swallowed hard as he looked at Sollux’s crazed expression. 

“What if you’re wrong?” He whispered, afraid of the sound of his own voice. “What if they’re right?” 

“Then I want to _know_ ,” Sollux snarled, pulling himself free and stomping forward. “For all our sakes, just this once, KK, I want _certainty_.” 

Karkat’s eyes widened and then narrowed in a mixture of dread and recognition at that tone. 

“Your vision twofold,” he whispered, resisting Sollux’s tugs and nearly making the taller troll stumble. “You saw this.” 

“I don’t know _what_ I saw,” Sollux hissed, “but it couldn’t have been good.” He licked his lips. “You know why? Because as soon as the vision started to take shape, with Eridan standing right in the center of it all, I heard _us_ screaming from the other side. You and Zahhak and Feferi and Terezi and everyone else we’ve ever known and met and gave a damn about.” He snarled, clutching Karkat’s wrist hard enough to make the bones creak under his hold. “And before I could make sense of my Ancestor’s secrecy or try to make Eridan stop ignoring me, Aradia was there. Aradia kept me away from Syzygy, when I tried to use her to get to him. Aradia kept me away from Feferi, when I tried to get some goddamn answers. And when I started to realize what it could all mean, she said everything was for the best, and then did _this_ to me.” His mouth trembled, but Karkat knew it was not from anger. “But what I saw, KK, what I heard? That sure as fuck wasn’t for the best. Not for us.” He pulled hard again, dragging Karkat a step closer. “So maybe they’re right, and I’m wrong. And I hope to any fucking god who gives a fuck, that I’m wrong. But I deserve to fucking _know_.” He raised his voice, on instinct trying to raise his psionics as well, but found himself unable to conjure little more than a rain of sparks down his spine. “We all do.” Whatever Aradia did to him, when she dipped the darkness into him, it did more than just muddle his mind. He stepped forward, expression dark. “Syzygy!” 

Arthur stopped at the sound of Sollux’s voice, taking advantage of Agness’ distraction to pull a few more needles off his skin. He was bloodied all over, worn in an unnatural way that made every point where the needles had hit him throb. Agness snarled at the interruption, then zeroed in her glare on Karkat. 

“Not you,” she said, shaking with anger, “ _them_ , I understand. But _you_. You should know him better than this.” Frustrated tears gathered in her eyes. “You were supposed to love him enough to let him go.” 

“I—“ Karkat searched for the right words and found them all lacking. 

“Agness.” 

They turned to see Equius arrive, tall and solemn and worn around the edges. Agness snarled at him, giving him another look of betrayal that rivaled the one she’d given Karkat. Equius withstood the abuse stoically, swallowing hard and holding his spine straight. 

“Please,” Equius’ voice seemed to cut through her, making her recoil as if struck. At her feet, the slime bubbled angrily, tendrils forming and melting back, as if in warning. Agness stared at her captain with a mixture of contempt and sadness, gritting her teeth. He offered a brittle smile, pleading rather than ordering. “Stand down.” 

“Why can’t any of you trust him to do the right thing?” She hissed, for a moment betraying her exhaustion. “Why can’t you risk letting him make his own choice?” 

“He’s going to kill the Heiress,” Sollux snapped, half mad with the dark ooze crawling through his thoughts and the memory of a warning his powers tried to give him. “A child, Syzygy. An innocent child, and with her, every other goddamn troll in the galaxy.” 

“You don’t know that,” she shook her head, baring her teeth at them. “He’s—“ 

“ _You_ don’t know he’s _not_ ,” Sollux replied, eyes narrowed. “Why the secrecy if not? Why is the Handmaid involved? Why bring my Ancestor into this, if not for protection against her lusus? Do you even _know_ what the imperial lusus is? Do you know what will happen if she’s enraged?” 

“He went to die,” Arthur gasped, pulling himself back to his feet. “Maybe he’s not going to kill the Heiress, fuck it all, I didn’t even know we _had_ one, til five seconds ago.” He laughed hollowly. “But he went out there, ready to die. He wasn’t himself.” 

“Whatever he wants to do,” Karkat added, swallowing hard, “it can only end poorly, if it involves the imperial lusus. For everyone, Agness, not just for himself. We don’t know for sure if he’s going to kill the Heiress, but we don’t know for sure he’s not, either. _We don’t know anything_.” 

“I _do_ know,” Agness whispered, loosening her hold on her needles and letting them fall noiselessly into the sand. “Because I trust him.” 

“We just want to help him make the right choice,” Equius said, voice quiet and expression torn. “We all want the same thing.” 

“No,” Agness snorted, “you want him to make the choice _you_ want.” She sneered, walking forward, to them, but also past them. “But fine, go ahead. Go and show him how little you think of him. I’ve stalled you enough as it is.” 

“Agness—“ Equius tried to reach out to her, as she stomped away, but she dodged his hand, heading resolutely back to the palace. 

Equius entertained the horrifying realization that he had never seen her cry before. But even in her defeat, even in her tears, she looked formidable in a way that made him wonder what would happen once it was all over. All he could be certain of, was that things would _change_. He wasn’t sure that was such a good thing, despite what the Empress had said. 

“Later,” Sollux promised, reaching out to clutch Karkat’s hand, holding onto it as if it were the last thing anchoring him in place. “Imoogi.” He narrowed his eyes at Arthur. “Can you fly us there?” 

Arthur decided not to ask why Sollux couldn’t do it on his own. Arthur decided not to ask any questions at all. They all wanted the same thing, after all. That had to be enough. 

It _had_ to. 

“Sure,” he offered an empty smirk, “just so long as you can tell me where _there_ is.” 

Even as far away as they were, they saw the column of light reach up into the sky, and watched in terrified silence as the green moon exploded into nothing right before their very eyes. The force of the explosion made them loose their footing. They watched the sea shake and roar, going almost feral in retaliation as the sky darkened considerably without the green glow. They lay on the ground for a moment longer, trying to process the enormity of what was happening and feeling mighty insignificant all things considered. 

Then violet light grabbed them all, and they were hurling across the sky, Arthur at the head. 

“Never mind,” he said, ignoring the trail of blood left in his wake, “I think I know.” 

“Then get us there,” Karkat said, with a voice he had trouble recognizing as his own. “Now.” 

  


* * *

  


The Handmaids were stopping the killing note of Gl'byolb’s voice, but Psii still felt the echoes hammering inside his skull, threatening to crack it from the inside out. He snarled at the pain, trying to burn it off with the heat of his own power, concentrating on the task at hand. A task that seemed more and more difficult the more the fight stretched on. He dared not use all his power all at once, not even sure he could control it if he did. So instead he burned a tentacle a time, obliterating it in red and blue, but there were too many and for each one he destroyed, it seemed ten more took its place. 

Gl'byolb rolled in the depths, titanic limbs shifting and aiming for him, trying to crush his body while she raised her voice in pitch, aiming to crush his mind. 

And Psii fought back, methodical and determined, certain now that he could feel death creeping up his spine, closer every second it passed by. But he realized he’d lied to Eridan, when he’d boasted he’d die trying to kill Gl'byolb. Measuring up against the monstrosity of her power, the murderous tang of her anger, he knew he couldn’t die until she was gone. 

He knew he doomed trollkind to extinction, if he dared die before his task was done. 

  


* * *

  


“I was promised a reckoning.” 

The words echoed in the sudden quiet, and Eridan gasped for breath, clutching uselessly at Condesce’s wrist as her fingers wrapped tight around his throat one last time, before she let him go. He panted loudly, collapsing on his knees at her feet, and for a moment he found providence in that voice, because it made the onslaught of violence stop. His clothes were torn and there were many, many bruises hiding under them. But he was still alive. And there was a certain mad determination to him, as he stood up, clutching his left shoulder and grinning wide and deranged, _because he was still alive_. 

And then he saw the source of the voice, and everything withered into dumbstruck silence. 

"I was promised destruction and rebirth," the Empress, whom Eridan had the sinking, terrifying feeling might be _The_ Empress, drawled in a slow, thoughtful tone. “I was promised it would not be in vain.” Her horns were massive, almost as long as she was tall, and she was certainly taller than Condesce or Feferi or any other of the ghosts who’d been trying so fervently to kill him up until a minute ago. There was a scar on her face, to match the deep gauges on the heavy armor she wore, finely decorated with a scale-like pattern and some swirls here and there. She wore no gold, no fuchsia, no crown. And unlike her kin around her, she looked, not like an Empress, but a Warlord. “I was promised a _reckoning_ ,” she insisted, lips pulling back into a smiling snarl, “not an incompetent child who knows not how to lie.” 

Eridan bit back the pain as his shoulder throbbed, and leaned forward, folding himself down until he was prostrating himself before her in a way no one did for the Empress anymore. But such were the old ways, the true old ways, and he didn’t have anything else to help him navigate the nightmare anymore. 

“Please,” he whispered, awed and terrified, certain begging for mercy was useless, but not sure what else to do. “Please, your Hallowed Highness, allow me to fulfill a promise of my own.” 

He heard murmurs all around him, ghosts of young girls and older women and ancient Empresses gathered close, waiting. They too seemed to understand the ageless dignity of the Warlord Empress, the one who instituted their thrones and their empires in the first place. Eridan felt certain she was the First, the one who crawled out of the sea one moonless night and commanded Alternia into her horde, who gave trolls the first lessons in bowing to their betters. He shuddered at the thought of how long she must have remained in the city of ghosts, prowling through the shifting buildings and the sinuous paths. 

“A promise?” The First Empress, who eons before had been known as Alilah the Undying, stepped forth and used the tip of her culling fork to turn Eridan’s face up. “To whom?” 

He swallowed hard against the metal pressing on his throat and resisted only for a moment, before he turned his eyes to her. She was massive and terrifying, and yet somehow the most beautiful troll Eridan had ever seen in his life. Her eyes were the same bottomless white of the other ghosts, bare and ancient, but something in them made Eridan feel the strange urge to cry. Not out of fear, no, but for her. 

Because he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that she deserved better than an empty existence within these halls. 

“To my moirail,” he muttered, drinking in her glory and finding himself strangely at peace with the idea of dying at her hands. “He’s fighting your lusus right now, your Hallowed Highness. I promised to take care of the girl.” 

Although her eyes were white and empty, Eridan felt them narrow as she pressed up with her weapon and he was forced to stand. He stared as she smiled ever so slightly, black lips tugging back to reveal wicked fangs. 

“You are here to kill my Heiress, are you not?” 

And Eridan, who’d been trying so hard to focus on just surviving from one moment to the next, who’d been consumed with fear and pain and desperation, found himself with enough time to take a deep breath and take stock of the madness boiling in his skull. Because deep down, deep into the well of his soul, he was angry and murderous and all those thoughts had no other escape but the child whose very existence had precipitated this chain of events. And he hated her, without knowing her, without caring to think much of her. Because it was her or his moirail, and the world had chosen her. Because his moirail had chosen her. 

“I don’t know,” he whispered, despite the rage and the violence thumping in his veins. Because a single thought still managed to hold onto his sanity, nailing it in place against the madness in the not-water-not-air all around them and his own growing mania, and he couldn’t stop it from echoing between his ears. “I want her dead, your Hallowed Highness,” he confessed, with the candid honesty only those facing death can muster, “but my moirail would not want to see her die.” 

“It is always hard, is it not?” The Empress said, a tint of laughter in her voice. And Eridan felt he’d passed a test he hadn’t realize he was taking. “To do what we promise, when it is not what we want.” She turned to look at the pillar of flesh holding the city in place, mouth hardening into a determined line. And in that moment Eridan felt an echo of what his ancestors, the ancestors of all trollkind, must have felt, when they folded back and swore themselves to her. Because in that expression was written all the might needed to conquer this and every other world. “I too, made a promise, the night the empire was born. I too know the weight of such a vow.” She started to walk towards the pillar, hair whispering dark things behind her. “Come then, child who knows not how to lie, let us see what your word is worth.” 

Helplessly, Eridan followed. 

  


* * *

  


Arthur pushed forward, carrying himself and the others with ease above an ocean that raged mightily at the loss of one of its shepherds. The sky was dark and the water was darker, and tremors shook Alternia to the core as they cut through miles in seconds, clad in violet light. They were silent, grim and desperate, too focused on the unknown they were heading up against, to really know what to say. Or even if saying anything was allowed. 

Arthur stopped abruptly, holding them up midair. In the distance, they could see the bolts of bright energy in red and blue, rising from the ocean, and hear the muffled screams of something Ancient and Terrible and Mad. But Arthur wasn't looking straight ahead anymore, staring at the horizon in the opposite direction, instead. 

“Lord Captor,” he said, before any of them could complain or ask about his sudden stop. “Can you hold them?” 

“What?” Sollux croaked, confused, blinking as he tried to assess what the seadweller was going on about. 

“Can you make it there on your own, the rest of the way?” Arthur asked, looking at them warily. 

“Don't back out now,” Karkat snarled, eyes all but glowing murderously, “you don't get to be a coward now, you son of a—“ 

“The green moon is gone,” Arthur said instead, swallowing hard as he tried to smile and barely managed a grimace. “It's _gone_ , but the pink one is still there.” He looked back at the horizon, and licked his lips. “But not for long.” 

“What do you—“ 

And then they saw it. The massive, flaming wreckage of the pink moon, larger than it had ever looked before, hurling into the atmosphere, enraging the sea as it went. It made sense, with that terrible quality that disaster always has, to see the moon approaching so fast. With the green moon gone, the gravitational balance that had kept both moons spinning around Alternia was irreparably broken. And now, as planet and lonesome moon attempted to find their place again, the moon had veered too close to the surface, to the pull of Alternia. 

The moon was falling, and nothing would survive the impact, when it did. 

“Arthur?” Equius asked, without asking, because he didn’t want an answer. 

He wanted his kismesis back and the world like it was, before the madness started. 

"Can. You. Get. Them. There?" Arthur enunciated again, ignoring him and trying very hard not to panic. 

Clearly, he was failing miserably, if his tone was anything to go by. 

Sollux took stock of his abused spine and the sheer miserable pain that threatened to peel the flesh off his bones, every time he tried to use his psionics, and nodded sharply, schooling his features into indifference as he wrapped Karkat, Equius and himself in red-blue light. 

“I can,” Sollux lied, eyes glowing as he pushed past the excruciating pain, forcing his powers out in a way that felt like his bones were being pulled out along with them, one at the time. “What are you going to do?” 

Arthur carefully held onto Equius and Karkat for a moment longer, until he felt Sollux’s grip was strong enough. He swallowed hard and set his jaw in the precise same way Eridan had, when he’d last seen him. 

"What the fuck do you even think you're doing?" Karkat asked, voice small, as light gathered around Arthur until it almost hurt to look at him. 

“Making my ancestors proud,” he said, grinning wickedly before bowing to them. “Please keep my brother from doing something stupid.” 

And without waiting for a reply, he shot out through the sky, towards the pink moon, which looked almost red as it combusted in the atmosphere and burned everything in its way. Sollux, Equius and Karkat watched him go, a violet star aiming to walk in the shoes of his predecessors, and said nothing for a heartbeat or two. 

They floated there, for a moment longer, just enough they got to see the violet light reaching out to try and slow down - and hopefully stop - the moon, and contemplated in silence what would happen to Alternia, should Arthur fail. 

“You're heavy,” Sollux said after a moment, forcing himself not to pant with effort, as he started flying them to the battlefield. He ignored the pain lacing every nerve as red and blue crackled down his spine, along the cables still lodged in it, “let's go.” 

They shot towards the battlefield again, wrapped in Sollux’s brand of light, though at a slower pace than they had been before. Neither Equius nor Karkat mentioned it. 

  


* * *

  


“This is where it all began,” Alilah said, in that quiet, magnificent tone of hers, as she lead Eridan into a block built at the base of the pillar of tentacles and flesh. “This is the heart of the corruption that eats at this world, the anchor that supplies much of my lusus’ power.” 

Eridan stared at the tentacles burrowing deep into the ground, and the marble and quartz reaching up to dome a ceiling around them. Up close, he could see it was only three limbs, twisted on each other like a mockery of a braid. And that each tentacle had a swelling in it, a sphere larger than he was tall, that pulsed and glowed, almost like a heartbeat. One was lilac, pale and almost completely swallowed by the tentacle that held it. Another was green, its brightness seemingly pushing against the limb trying to keep it in place. And the last one was a translucent sphere, where a young girl curled up inside, almost as if within a second egg. Eridan felt the pulse of irrational hatred kick at his teeth from the inside, and his fingers clutched on his wand, on reflex. 

“She is being bound,” Alilah explained, watching the girl with an eerie sadness in her expression. It surprised Eridan to realize even the First Hallowed Empress of Alternia could feel such common things as sadness. “She is not Hers yet, not like me and your Empress are. She is still herself.” She turned to Eridan, eyes narrowed. “If you destroy the pillar, your moirail’s victory will be your own.” She tilted her head to the side. “But if you do so without killing the girl, you will only weaken her so much.” Her smile was poisonous. “So then, child, what will your choice be?” 

Eridan stepped further into the block, still uncertain, torn by the conflicting impulses of loyalty and hate. But then he heard it, another voice; one that commanded all of his attention and drowned the echoes of his own thoughts. Alilah smiled knowingly, and bowed her head, unseen. 

_Let me go_ , the light contained within the green cocoon pleaded in the softest whisper, coiling inside his skull. _Set me free_ , it begged, even as it pulsed with power that, Eridan was terrified to realize, he could see being siphoned straight up into the monstrous being roaring mightily above their heads. _Let me go_ , the creature in the pillar wailed and in itself the wail was a Song, of misery and despair and hopelessness, _set me free_. 

He licked his lips, fingers tightly clenched around the wand. This was not the Song of Gl’bolyb, which twisted his thoughts and burnt out the edges of his mind. This was not a Song of war or conquest or disdain. It was a Song of Power, a Song not unlike the pulse of the wand in his hand, featureless, boundless possibility stretching between each note, reaching inside his being and asking if he too did not think it was outrageous for such a Song to be used and abused and hidden in the depths, drowned out by the sheer monstrosity of Gl’bolyb’s voice. 

_Let me go_ , the voice sang, pitiful. 

Aradia had called the echoes inside the wand Hope, but Eridan stared at the pillar that seemed to sustain the city itself in place, and thought this was Melody in its purest form. The choice presented itself again. The girl or his moirail. 

_Set me free._

He raised the wand and took aim. 

  


* * *

  


Psii panted hard as all limbs stopped together, pausing when Gl’bolyb’s attention was torn away from him. He didn’t question it, instead using the brief respite to gather himself together and assess the damage he’d dealt. Bit by bit, he’d trimmed down the forest of tentacles, but there were still many, many more left yet, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up that restrained pace. 

And then the Scream came, a note of such sheer furious wrath that it was soon echoed by the screams of the Handmaids. 

Psii looked up at the circle and saw many of them clutching their heads, twisting and kicking as they tried to keep themselves whole. And then one by one, the effort proved too much, and the Darkness from their gods erupted from their bodies, tearing off arms and legs and horns, swallowing them up in their madness. 

“You’re winning!” Aradia yelled at him, the single figure in red, still whole and determined, unmoved by the gruesome death of her sisters. “You mustn’t stop just yet! Just a little more!” 

Psii opened his mouth to yell back something trite, but he found himself caught in one of the tentacles, as Gl’bolyb redoubled her efforts in her wrath. His head pulsed with madness and he felt himself faint, but he ground his teeth and gathered his power to him, using a burst of light to break free from her hold. He pulled away, gathering strength at his fingertips to try a more direct approach, and realized with trepidation that she seemed to have lessened in size all of a sudden. The limbs looked less shiny, less muscled, than they’d been before. 

But she was still screaming, and the Handmaids were still dying, one by one, bursting into balls of concentrated Dark. 

He didn’t ask any questions, and instead let loose his power at her, cutting down her limbs and relishing in the sight of her blood flying in arcs across the air. Such a hallowed, sacred hue; the same hue as the imperial swill that flowed in the veins of all the tyrants that had brought trollkind to heel. He found a perverse amusement in spilling such blood, and found himself smiling, even as he felt his body ache from effort. 

It was not done yet, but soon. 

  


* * *

  


The moment the light hit the pillar, Eridan found himself thrown off his feet with the recoil. He coughed, scrambling to stand up again, and stared as he saw the cocoon holding the Heiress crack and the girl fall to the floor. She didn’t make a sound. The other two didn’t split so much as burst open, and from within came two balls of light, one lilac, one green, that circled each other almost in greeting, before the lilac light shot up and away, out of Eridan’s line of sight. 

But the green light stayed, and it _changed_. 

It grew wings, reshaping itself into something troll-like, but at the same time unlike any troll Eridan had ever seen before. Its wings were like the wings of featherbeasts, wide and strong, nothing like Tavros’. And its feet grew talons and bent strangely, as did its hands. And though the light was so bright no details could really be seen clearly, Eridan could feel its eyes on him, bright eyes that shone green-on-black, the same black that rested between the stars and the same green as the glow covering its body. 

“Well _done_ , Prince,” the figure said, with a smile in her tone, and Eridan felt like he should bow before whatever it was he was witnessing, and yet somehow found he couldn’t. “Send my regards to Her, and may our wait be short.” 

“I made a promise,” Alilah said, quietly, and Eridan startled to remember she was there in the first place. “I promised we would meet again.” 

He turned to her and stared when he realized she was on her knees, one hand holding onto her culling fork, the other flat on the ground, and her proud head bent down in reverence. It seemed sacrilegious, somehow, and yet it seemed also right and proper. Eridan wondered if he’d gone insane, but then remembered that was more of a given than a possibility at this point. 

“Yes,” the creature said, spreading her wings and blowing up the remnants of the building as she did, “we _all_ made a promise.” 

And then the light shattered into dozens of small specks that flew off and found the ghosts. They melted into them and as they did, their eyes filled in with color once more: green-on-black. And together, the Empresses and would-be-Empresses became Speakers of a sort, hosts to something Rightful and yet forgotten. 

But not for long. 

“You should go,” Alilah-who-was-no-longer-just-Alilah said, staring at Eridan with those eerie eyes that seemed to peer straight into his soul. “It won’t be long now.” 

Before Eridan could muster a reply – though nothing seemed adequate, all things considered – Alilah-who-was-no-longer-just-Alilah anymore tilted her head back and opened her mouth. Outside, Empresses and would-be-Empresses did the same. 

And then, all at once, from their throats Melody and Her Righteous Song flowed back into the world. 

  


* * *

  


For a fleeting moment, Aradia thought it would not work, that they would not be able to hold on for long enough. For a moment, she wondered if Eridan had chosen to run. 

For the briefest second, Aradia Doubted. 

And then the Song burst out from beneath Gl’bolyb, wounding her just as effectively as Psii’s attacks did, forcing back her song. And the False Singer stumbled, when the True Singer made herself known to the world, her voice the voice of dozens upon dozens of stolen shards of Time. 

“ _And the chorus of the Undying shall sing the Song of Ages_ ,” Aradia mused with a tired, wry smile just as the last of her sisters fell, consumed inside out by the Dark of their masters. 

That was how they were all meant to go, after all. Once spent and their mission complete, the Circle didn’t care to see them live. And most of them didn’t want to go on living, after all they had done. But Aradia was different. Aradia was the Shepherd of the End, the Harbinger of Rebirth. 

Aradia chose _life_. 

So when Melody neutralized Gl’bolyb’s psychic scream and prevented the Vast Glub from coming into being, Aradia pulled her powers into herself and turned to the whirlwinds of Dark and Madness that her fellow Handmaids had become. And then she pulled _them_ in, stealing their memories and the last echoes of themselves, along with the powers they had wielded. She felt the Dark writhe beneath her skin, protesting the theft, and saw her veins turn black and bulge along her arms and her legs and her face. But she didn’t care. 

Because she chose life, she chose rebirth. 

And while last one would pay for all, this wasn’t it, not yet. 

She screamed as the Dark rebelled in her grasp and fought to return to the place beyond the Veil, to where it belonged. She screamed as her skin burst and her horns exploded on her head, but she held on. Defiant and proud and willing, she repeated the words to herself, like a mantra that bound her sense of self together and allowed her to endure the way her body bent and broke under the strain. 

“ _I choose life!_ ” She shrieked, raising a hand or what was left of a hand to the sky, throwing the entirety of her will behind the gesture. 

The sky and the sea shuddered as reality was torn asunder and a gaping hole appeared. Beyond the torn flaps of writhing time and space, her masters called. 

But Aradia was no longer there to heed their command. 

Aradia had gathered all her strength and her will, and left through the cracks, to where and when she had one last debt to repay. 

  


* * *

  


It was too big and too fast for him to stop. He could feel his powers straining, the ports along his skin bleeding profusely as he pushed himself to breaking point, and still the damn thing. Would. Not. _Stop_. 

But neither would he. 

He couldn't. 

He _couldn't_. 

Even if he was tired and spent, every wound Agness had inflicted burning with keen misery. Even if in his heart of hearts he knew this was futile and he didn’t have what it took to make a miracle happen. He could not stop. Would not stop. Not until he made his Ancestors proud. 

And then, as his strength drained almost to nothing and the moon hit the lower atmosphere, pale lilac light gathered in front of him. Arthur gasped and lost his concentration as the light stretched, wide and massive, into a shape that was half troll, half featherbeast. Its wings seemed endless, and though he couldn't make out details, he thought the creature's eyes glinted with amusement as a glowing arm rose slowly and a single clawed finger reached for his forehead. The touch was cool against his skin, and yet every nerve in his body screamed in awareness as he connected with something beyond the scope of his imagination. 

His eyes filled out lilac-on-black, bottomless black, like the space between the stars, as the light poured _in_ and he felt himself consumed by it. 

_Her_ . 

_Witch_ , whispered a voice in his mind, coming from corners he had never known existed in his soul, and as she took over his body, he felt himself be made small and insignificant, pushed aside inside his own skull. He didn’t fight it, though. Couldn’t really fight it, not when he’d glimpsed at understanding of what she was. Who she was. 

_Please_ , he thought instead, desperate, _please don't let it fall_. 

And the Witch, and his body housing the Witch, screamed as he felt power syphoning into his body, which struggled to hold it all. Below them – him and Her and they – a lilac spiral symbol glowed itself into being, and Arthur gasped, curled in his corner of awareness, as one by one shades of his predecessors appeared along the pattern of the light. His brothers, long dead but not forgotten, pulled from the fog of time and space, shades not unlike the ones who had once roamed the great citadel beneath the waves. And with them came their power, adding to his own, flowing through his veins and feeding the insane task he’d undertaken. They’d undertaken. Even Glydan and Cadmus and Lord Imoogi appeared along the spiral, ghosts of themselves – and across the sea and the galaxy, Glydan and Cadmus and Garfit stumbled and heard the call, felt the plea of something kindred, and allowed the power to Flow, because they were Imoogi, for better or for worse, and kin always came first, for them – but also dozens upon dozens of trolls with the same spiteful tilt of mouth and the same curved horns. And their power Flowed, from memory and beyond the grave, across time and death, it rushed into his bones and his tired limbs. Willingly given, offered without restraints, because she asked in his name, and he too was Imoogi, for all he’d endeavored to forget it. 

Had Arthur still had enough of himself to try and understand what was happening, he would have noticed the chain stretched back, unbroken, but stopped abruptly before the beginning. He would have counted and felt and realized the First had refused the call, but together they had more than enough power to make a miracle. Psii had always taught him it took more power to create and protect than to destroy, and Arthur had always believed him. Now he had enough to make a difference, to right a wrong. 

And it was enough to stop the moon, suspended in violet-lilac light, and to pacify the seas, tainted lilac-violet, reordering the world to make up for whatever Eridan had unleashed. Arthur, humbled and fading from his own consciousness, bowed to the Witch, cradled in the warmth of his own kin and safe in the knowledge that at least this once, he hadn't failed. 

The Witch of Flow smiled, free and herself, and set out to make herself known. She didn’t have Songs, like Melody did, but it didn’t matter. Because she was the strength that spun out from one link to the next, in the great chain of existence; she was the strength that could turn a breeze into a hurricane. 

She was one and she was many, and she was _free_. 

And the world would soon know it. 

  


* * *

  


They reached their destination in time to see green light rise like a barrier, reaching from the bottom of the ocean, across the wall of water and up into the sky, to touch the edges of the portal that connected with the darkness beyond the Veil. They arrived in time to see Psii, a ball of red and blue, dive in and allow himself be swallowed by Gl’bolyb’s largest, gaping maw. They arrived in time to witness his death as he burned himself out, the explosion rocking his enemy from the inside out as it tore her body to pieces. 

They arrived in time to see the writhing limbs and the crumbling city begin to ascend into the gash in time and space, heading back to the other side as Gl’bolyb’s song dimmed into a whisper of defeat and the echo of Melody thundered victorious. 

They arrived in time to realize it was all over, and despite witnessing as it did, they still couldn’t hope to understand. 

  


* * *

  


Eridan found himself thrown off his feet yet again as the city began to fall apart, rising in the air along with Gl’bolyb as the portal called. He wobbled back up, wand still clutched in his hand, and saw the girl lying on a different chunk of rock, slowly rolling towards the edge. 

And for a moment he wondered what would happen if he turned around and ran, if her death didn’t come from his hands but his inaction. 

But then he felt Gl’bolyb screech and her song wither, and knew it didn’t matter anymore. His moirail was gone. He felt mad grief kick his ribs inside out, letting himself fall to his knees as he wailed with sheer loss. Because he was gone, now, and even if it was what he’d wanted, it wasn’t what _Eridan_ wanted. Because Eridan understood, in that moment, that even when he had all the cards, when he had power to make the world into his plaything, it wasn’t enough. 

It might never be enough. 

It wasn’t fair and it would never be anything but unfair, but he’d made his choice. And in the end that was all he could do, much like Aradia had told him. So he pushed himself up and forward and leaped from his piece of broken floor to the one the girl was in, and slid along the tilted surface until he caught a tiny wrist in his hand. And even then, the thought remained, venomous and unkind, fueling the urge to let her go. To make her pay for the great crime of existing. 

He pulled her up against his chest and hissed as his shoulder throbbed when he squirmed out of his jacket. He hated her, more than he ever hated anyone in the world, and he knew with clarity that terrified him, that it wasn’t fair. But she was still of imperial blood and it just wasn’t right to drag her along naked as she was. He laughed at himself, at his heartbreak and his madness, as he wrapped the torn and dirty fabric around her, mystified by her size. 

To think someone so small and insignificant had set in motion something so grand. 

She shifted in his arms, and for the first time opened her eyes, juvenile grey, as if Eridan needed another reminder that she was too young to have done anything other than exist. And Eridan put every memory of Psii behind his smile as he cradled her close. 

“It’s going to be alright,” he said, voice rough with tears he didn’t even realize he was shedding until she reached up to touch them as they slid down his chin. “Promise.” 

She made a quiet noise in the back of her throat, and then folded up against him, tucking her head against his shoulder. 

He hated her, more than anything he’d ever hated anyone before. But that wasn’t what Psii would have wanted and it wasn’t _fair_. In his madness, Eridan spun around into enough sanity to realize Psii had died for this girl, so that she might live on and have a destiny of her own. And even though he hated her, he loved his moirail many more times than that. She was the only thing left of him, now, and that meant that Eridan would rearrange reality for the sake of keeping her alive. 

Because that was what Psii would have wanted. 

He didn’t get much time to ponder on that realization, however, as the wreckage of the city sped up its ascent into the portal. Eridan stared at Gl’bolyb’s broken limbs and realized that he most certainly didn’t want to go where she was heading. He was exhausted, but he wasn’t done yet. So he leaped off the rock into one further down, heading over to the edge of the barrier. Hysterically, he thought it was no different than his usual races within the bowels of his ship, hanging off pipes and leaping from one catwalk to the next. 

Only this time there was no Psii or Arthur to catch him if he fell. 

And as he rushed away, feet skidding along the marble that no longer looked white and bright as it had, under Gl’bolyb’s spell, he realized with a sinking feeling that he might never get the freedom to risk breaking his neck inside his ship again. Because he’d chosen Psii over the others. Because he’d lied and schemed and done all those things he’d always been berated for. It didn’t matter if the girl was safely pressed against his body, if the soft echo of her breathing against his collarbone told him she was still alive. 

They were going to shove him inside a tiny white cell and this time there would be nowhere to go but the culling block. 

Because he was himself, and he did things his own way, and he made a bargain with the Handmaid and chose her terms instead of theirs. It didn’t matter he couldn’t even quite decide who _they_ were anymore, someone would see this as nothing more than a continuation of his last trip down madness and regret. It didn’t matter if the Empress herself had apologized to him, tacitly approving of his actions. 

It didn’t matter because this would make things _change_ , and there would be no going back, to the way things were before. 

Eridan cried and snarled as he made his way down the debris, ignoring the way the ghosts he passed by exploded into green light and were finally put to rest as Melody consumed them entirely. That wasn’t his business anymore. All that mattered was getting the girl to safety, the girl he hated more than himself and to whom he knew he’d already sworn loyalty in not so many words. 

  


* * *

  


Far away from Alternia, all the way across the galaxy, the Void Belt began to crumble away without Gl’bolyb’s song to keep it whole. And so Melody’s message reached out beyond the stars, beyond the edges of the Empire, into other galaxies and other worlds. 

Her voice sought out the ears of gods, Rightful but exiled from the cradle of their world. Old gods, gods trolls hadn’t forgotten so much as never known in the first place. 

_She’s coming_ , Melody’s song whispered into their awareness, _the prodigal returns_. 

Hidden away in temples and shrines, the gods pondered the news with trepidation and resentment, and took it out on the loyal subjects who offered their worship without question. The End was coming, that was for certain. They could feel it in the very essence of their beings. 

They just didn’t know the end of _what_ exactly. 

  


* * *

  


“Eridan!” 

The sound of his name broke him out of the toxic spin of his thoughts and he looked down to realize he was already hundreds of feet above sea level. He squinted as he saw the figures hovering beyond the barrier, and felt something like hope bloom inside his soul again. He leaped off towards them, to the remnants of a grand temple that was rising slower than the rest. He laughed as he landed, as Sollux and Karkat and Equius rose along with him, across the green light. It didn’t matter if his knees creaked with effort and his body screamed in protest, bruised black and blue beneath his clothes. It didn’t matter. 

Because maybe they would protect him from _them_. Karkat had protected him, before. Perhaps Eridan could beg for protection once more. Perhaps Equius and Sollux would be willing to join the chorus. And then maybe, just maybe, this time would be different than the last. Maybe this time, the web of bonds he’d woven around himself would be enough to keep him safe. 

“Is she alive?” Sollux demanded, half mad with pain himself. 

Eridan snarled a laugh and clutched the tiny body closer to him. 

“Would I still be holding onto her if she fucking weren’t?” He taunted, delirious with hope and the slow-sinking realization that they’d _won_. 

“What manner of wretched thing is this?” Equius thundered, slamming his fists against the barrier and finding it would not yield. 

“Stand back,” Eridan said, blinking back tears and shifting the girl onto one arm as he pulled the wand into the other, “I’ve got this.” He looked at Karkat in the eye and willed him to understand everything that went into those words. “Trust me.” 

“Always,” Karkat whispered, guilt and love knotted up inside his throat. 

And then Eridan aimed the wand and white light burst forth, slamming into Melody’s barrier and forcing it to crack and open the same way it had made Gl’bolyb’s break when he’d entered the city. Eridan gasped as air rushed in with enough force to make him step back, but even the air smelled sweet, because there was a promise of freedom and success in it. Equius and Karkat offered their hands, a tacit promise to not let him fall. 

Eridan leaped. 

  


* * *

  


“What have I done, Gamzee?” Feferi asked, standing on the shore. “Really?” 

“The most righteous motherfucking thing,” Gamzee replied, sitting on the sand, elbows on his knees and head tilted back as he studied the violet-lilac lightning dancing across the water slowly vanishing into nothing. “You’ve opened the way for Them.” 

“Whatever you’ve done,” Terezi interjected, sitting next to Gamzee, in a posture eerily reminiscent of his, “it’s done now.” 

“I suppose you’re right,” Feferi sighed, wrapping her arms around herself as if to shield herself from the sudden emptiness inside her mind. The Song that had always echoed in a corner of her soul was gone now, extinguished for good. But she did not cry, for her lusus or what had been lost with her, because she’d chosen to let things happen as they may. She chose, and that had to be a comfort on its own, now. “There’s no use regretting it now.” 

“You did what you thought was right,” Agness said, standing on a rock, further away from them. Because even if the Empress would hug her like an old friend, she didn’t belong among them. She wasn’t great or powerful or legendary. She was just an admin who refused to give up on her friends. “For better or for worse, we all did.” 

“You didn’t even ask what was going on,” Feferi pointed out, turning to look at Agness with both admiration and a tad of jealousy. She wished for that, whatever it was she had, that Feferi clearly didn’t, that allowed her to leap in without looking. “You just…” 

“Sister ain’t needing no motherfucking explanations,” Gamzee laughed, leaning back to give Agness an approving grin. The tealblood pointedly looked away with a snort. “She’s got something even more miraculous than that.” 

“Faith,” Terezi summarized, grinning a little herself. 

She was tired and aching, because it was no small thing, to fight toe to toe with the Grand Highblood and live to tell the tale. And it was no small thing, either, to watch one’s matesprit walk to his death and swallow back the grief, because he didn’t need another burden to slow him down. 

“I suppose we all do, don’t we?” Feferi smiled wetly, clutching her hands tightly and turning back to the horizon. “I just hope it’s not misplaced.” 

For some reason, her wording made Gamzee cackle in delight. 

  


* * *

  


At that precise moment, Gl’bolyb – what remained of Gl’bolyb, more dead than alive, but still enough – crossed the portal and felt the weight of judgment looming above her. And with her last strength, she pushed against the Song, taking advantage of the fact that all but one of Melody’s hosts had burst to nothing and through triumphant, her voice was weakening. With her dying strength, Gl’bolyb threw a limb, burnt and bleeding, and reached out across the void, for her child. 

Because she was the Interloper, the False Singer who defied fate and allowed herself to dream of freedom and a destiny that did not end in destruction, but she was also a Mother by her own right. Because that was what she had been made to be, in this world and all worlds that had need of her presence. Because despite her bargain and her brand of slavery, she was a Mother and she loved her children, each and every one of them. She had loved them so much she had refused to give them up when death came to claim them. 

And even in the twilight of her life, in the bitterness of her defeat, Gl’bolyb refused to give up her charge. 

Smiles turned to horror, then, as the limb wrapped around Eridan and tugged, just as he was about to cross the barrier. And he couldn’t even scream as he was hurled back into the Dark, but he could hear the others scream as he vanished with Gl’bolyb into the Void beyond the Veil. 

Sollux rushed in to try and go after him, but without the wand’s magic and Eridan’s will to keep it open, the barrier shut down again and he found himself bouncing off it, Karkat and Equius with him. 

“Do something!” Karkat screeched, slamming his fists into the light, not caring if they bled. “ _Do something!_ ” 

Equius let out a shriek of rage and helplessness, slamming his shoulder and all his considerable strength behind it, against the translucent green wall. 

“I’m trying!” Sollux snarled, trying to force his powers to work and not being terribly successful in the matter. 

His attempts were interrupted as bright red light erupted in the center of the barrier, just as Melody’s song came to a quiet stop. The light pulsed and gathered into a single point, into a slim figure at its core. Clad in red and something Final, Aradia Megido emerged from the light, chains and ribbons hanging off her limbs and atop her head, her horns unbroken and whole. But it was the wings that threw them off. Huge and translucent red, they glinted with the same glow as the jewel holding onto the collar of her dress. And she smiled at them, the same kind, warm smile that they remembered, as if Eridan wasn’t gone and the world wasn’t ending for all they knew. 

“It’s quite alright, don’t worry,” Aradia promised, “it’s just the Beginning of the End.” 

“What do you mean?” Sollux demanded, hurt and betrayed in a way that put Karkat and Equius’ loss to shame. “What have you _done?_ ” 

“In Time, you’ll understand,” Aradia smiled, spreading her arms, palms up. “Time has a way of making sense of everything, even that which seems unforgivable.” 

Another flash of light, lilac this time. And then Arthur-who-was-not-Arthur was there, before Sollux could explode into profanity like he desperately wanted to. Lilac lightning crackled across his skin, highlighting the bruises on his skin. His right horn was splintered, blood still glistening across the cracks. But it was nothing compared to the left, which had snapped about an inch above his chin. He looked, simultaneously, ready to take down the entire universe if need be, and yet also ready to fall over dead. 

“The Debt has been paid,” said the creature who was not Arthur Imoogi but spoke with his voice and his mouth, hovering in pale lilac light a few meters away from where Sollux held onto Karkat and Equius. Her eyes, lilac-on-black, glinted with morbid amusement as she tilted her borrowed head sideways. “As you’ve always said, last one pays for all.” 

Aradia – they _thought_ it was Aradia; it _looked_ like her, if one ignored the flowing chains and ribbons and the massive glowing wings at her back, and it even _sounded_ like her – smiled brightly and curtsied mid-air, wings fluttering behind her. 

“One of many, yes,” she said, and her voice carried over perfectly across the distance. “Tell Them, please, that I will be waiting here, when the Time comes.” 

The Lilac Witch, Mage of Flow, snorted in disdain but nodded. And then her light gathered and shot out into the sky, leaving behind the empty vessel that had never been meant to harness her power. Hollowed inside out, in more ways than one, Arthur's body pummeled to the enraged sea and only Equius’ quick reflexes managed to catch him before he fell into the surf. On his forehead, the sigil of Flow became a scar where she’d touched him; a reminder of what he’d been, just for a fleeting moment, and would never be again. 

Aradia smiled. 

“I will see you soon,” she promised as she raised her hands and the red glow intensified. The orange of her eyes filled up with black, but it was not the Dark of the Gods beyond the Veil. It was the mark of the Righteous, though the will and the power were solely her own. When she brought down her arms, her ribbons and chains stretched out impossibly, encircling both the still writhing gash in time and space, and the remnants of the city, still rising towards it. “It won’t be long, now.” 

The last ghost still holding onto existence, housing all of Melody in herself, smiled as the light rushed at her. Because she was the Undying, and she would honor her title and remain, until the end. Until the promise was fulfilled. 

“ _Aradia!_ ” 

It was unclear which voice screamed her name, but it was too late. The light shone brightly, engulfing everything within, and then faded into a muted glow, encasing the crystal-like barrier of solid Time holding everything in place. The sea rushed in to lap at its sides, but still, the tip of the sphere domed above the surface. 

Within her cocoon, the Maid of Time closed her eyes, falling into a deep, contented sleep. 

All that was left now was to wait for the pieces to fall into place. 

  


* * *

  


_End of Act I_

  


* * *

  


“Shit, shit, _fuck!_ ” Eridan yelled, struggling to free himself from Gl’bolyb’s clutches. The girl cried against his chest, screaming in wordless fear. “It’s okay!” He snarled desperately, trying to shield her from the monster’s touch when he realized it seemed to hurt her somehow. “I can fix this!” 

He wasn’t so sure he could, not really. But then Darkness rose and swallowed Gl’bolyb at once, snuffing out her life like one would a candle. And the darkness purred in content, because justice had been served at last, and the Interloper had been brought back to face the punishment for her crimes. The Most Honorable Circle of Horrorterrors had one lest worry to occupy their thoughts. If the creatures that held a place in the Circle even had the ability to worry, of course. 

Still, the darkness was pleased, because it wasn’t quite a horrorterror himself, yet, and as such he was still allowed to be smug. So maybe the gamble had worked out in the end, the first part of it, at least. He was glad, because it suited him, and he felt entitled to his smugness, even if he’d argued against it in the first place. It was his nature to be contradictory, after all. The Old Man folded himself back into a troll-like shape, blurred around the ages but close enough, and flew up to where Eridan was floating in a very controlled panic, clutching the girl tight against his chest and trying to make sense of the Void around him. 

“As for you,” the Old Man said, grinning with far too many teeth, raising a hand to show a certain golden-white stone that hovered above his palm, “well, aren’t _you_ far away from home.” 

Eridan’s eyes widened in recognition, as a glimmer of Hope curled up in his chest, irrational as it was. It wasn’t all lost. Not just yet. He couldn’t give into despair, not until everything was said and done. And he still had the girl in his arms, her sobs slowly quieting as he absently ran his fingers through her hair. 

“He might well be,” said the Heir, purring each word as her light pulsed like a heartbeat in the center of her cage, “but _you_ best of all should know, where there’s Will, there’s always a way.” The light shone brightly, as cracks began to appear on the surface of the stone. But this time the Old Man did nothing more than watch, waiting. “So _do_ tell, Prince of Hope, do _you_ have the will to make a way?” 

The Heir made her voice sweet and gentle, but there was something hard and hateful woven into her words. The Old Man smiled as the stone began to crumble around the edges, floating back, away from the light. Because in the end he was Dark and Other, and the Heir was nothing if not Light and Rightful. Even after eons together, he knew better than to trust her not to destroy him if she got the chance. 

“Do you want to go _home_?” 

Eridan set his jaw and steeled his determination, surprised to see how much he had left still, after the whole ordeal. Perhaps even more than he’d started with. He cradled the girl close, feeling his madness hold onto that sliver of hope, giving it something to cling to. He thought of Karkat and Equius, reaching out to him. He thought of Sollux and Arthur and Feferi. He thought of his friends and his duties and that quiet, modest niche he’d carved for himself with his own hands, that would never be what he’d dreamed for, when he was young, but that was in its entirety all too precious to him, now. He thought of everything he wanted, all he’d nearly lost and now wanted all the more just because of it. 

The answer was so obvious it barely needed to be said. But he still pushed it past his lips, expression fierce. 

_“Yes.”_

**Author's Note:**

> [Askblog for this verse.](http://requisitionforms.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you're so inclined, please feel free to leave a comment, I'd love to hear about your feedback on this monster. 0w0
> 
> Also the story will continue on Act II, _Sights on Heaven_ , which should be posted as soon as I get some damn reliable internet at home.


End file.
